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  • Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/heres-a-dozen-books-from-2023-you-should-read-critics-say

Here’s a dozen books from 2023 you should read, critics say

As the year comes to a close, we’re sitting down with book critics to discuss some of the best books released in 2023. NPR’s Fresh Air book critic Maureen Corrigan and New York Times books editor Gilbert Cruz share their favorite fiction and nonfiction picks with Jeffrey Brown.

”Absolution” by Alice McDermott

Absolution - Alice McDermot

– Maureen Corrigan

“The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store” by James McBride

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store - James McBride

“The Bee Sting” by Paul Murray

The Bee Sting - Paul Murray

– Gilbert Cruz

“North Woods” by Daniel Mason

North Woods - Daniel Mason

“The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder” by David Grann

The Wager - David Grann

“How to Say Babylon” by Safiya Sinclair

How to Say Babylon - Safiya Sinclair

“Master Slave Husband Wife” by Ilyon Woo

Master Slave Husband Wife - Ilyon Woo

“Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World” by John Vaillant

Fire Weather - John Valiant

“Beware the Woman” by Megan Abbott

Beware the Woman - Megan Abbott

And more personal favorites…

Maureen Corrigan recommended “Tom Lake” by Ann Patchett and Gilbert Cruz suggested “Fourth Wing” and “Iron Flame” by Rebecca Yarros.

Tom Lake - Ann Patchett

In his more than 30-year career with the NewsHour, Brown has served as co-anchor, studio moderator, and field reporter on a wide range of national and international issues, with work taking him around the country and to many parts of the globe. As arts correspondent he has profiled many of the world's leading writers, musicians, actors and other artists. Among his signature works at the NewsHour: a multi-year series, “Culture at Risk,” about threatened cultural heritage in the United States and abroad; the creation of the NewsHour’s online “Art Beat”; and hosting the monthly book club, “Now Read This,” a collaboration with The New York Times.

Anne Azzi Davenport is the Senior Producer of CANVAS at PBS NewsHour.

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new york times books everyone should read

The 100 Must-Read Books of 2020

The fiction, nonfiction and poetry that deepened our understanding, ignited our curiosity and helped us escape —Andrew R. Chow, Eliana Dockterman, Mahita Gajanan, Annabel Gutterman, Suyin Haynes, Nate Hopper, Cady Lang and Lucas Wittmann

new york times books everyone should read

Actress by Anne Enright

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The Address Book by Deirdre Mask

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African American Poetry by Kevin Young (Editor)

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Afterlife by Julia Alvarez

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Begin Again by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

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Big Friendship by Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman

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A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet

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The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

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Cleanness by Garth Greenwell

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The Dragons, the Giant, the Women by Wayétu Moore

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Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake

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Golden Gates by Conor Dougherty

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Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker

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His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie

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Hitler by Volker Ullrich

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new york times books everyone should read

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My Autobiography of Carson McCullers by Jenn Shapland

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150 Glimpses of the Beatles by Craig Brown

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Penguin Random House

Readers’ Picks: Books Everyone Should Read

We asked, and you answered these gripping nonfiction and fiction titles come highly recommended as books you should absolutely read. from earnest memoirs to literary classics, there’s a story here to captivate you..

A Little Life Book Cover Picture

A Little Life

By hanya yanagihara, paperback $18.00, buy from other retailers:.

Atomic Habits Book Cover Picture

Atomic Habits

By james clear, hardcover $27.00.

Educated Book Cover Picture

by Tara Westover

Paperback $18.99.

A Promised Land Book Cover Picture

A Promised Land

By barack obama, hardcover $45.00.

Solito Book Cover Picture

by Javier Zamora

Between Two Kingdoms Book Cover Picture

Between Two Kingdoms

By suleika jaouad, paperback $20.00.

The Marriage Portrait Book Cover Picture

The Marriage Portrait

By maggie o'farrell, paperback $17.00.

Caste Book Cover Picture

by Isabel Wilkerson

Paperback $21.00.

Lessons in Chemistry Book Cover Picture

Lessons in Chemistry

By bonnie garmus, hardcover $29.00.

Giovanni's Room Book Cover Picture

Giovanni’s Room

By james baldwin, paperback $16.00.

All My Rage Book Cover Picture

All My Rage

By sabaa tahir, paperback $12.99.

Half of a Yellow Sun Book Cover Picture

Half of a Yellow Sun

By chimamanda ngozi adichie.

Project Hail Mary Book Cover Picture

Project Hail Mary

By andy weir.

Criaturas luminosas / Remarkably Bright Creatures Book Cover Picture

Criaturas luminosas / Remarkably Bright Creatures

By shelby van pelt, paperback $21.95.

The Violin Conspiracy Book Cover Picture

The Violin Conspiracy

By brendan slocumb.

The Divine Comedy Book Cover Picture

The Divine Comedy

By dante alighieri, paperback $25.00.

East of Eden Book Cover Picture

East of Eden

By john steinbeck, paperback $19.00.

Las diez mil puertas de enero / The Ten Thousand Doors of January Book Cover Picture

Las diez mil puertas de enero / The Ten Thousand Doors of January

By alix e. harrow, paperback $11.95.

Otherlands Book Cover Picture

by Thomas Halliday

Paperback $22.00.

La amiga estupenda / My Brilliant Friend Book Cover Picture

La amiga estupenda / My Brilliant Friend

By elena ferrante, paperback $14.95.

Happening Book Cover Picture

by Annie Ernaux

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125 Books We Love

Celebrate the Library’s anniversary with 125 books, from the last 125 years, that inspire a lifelong love of reading.

125 Books We Love for Adults

Filter results below, 125 books found.

Cover of 1984

The Adventures of Augie March

Cover of The Adventures of Augie March

The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue

Cover of The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue

Alexander Hamilton

Cover of Alexander Hamilton

All Quiet on the Western Front

Cover of All Quiet on the Western Front

Along Came a Spider

Cover of Along Came a Spider

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Cover of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

American Gods

Cover of American Gods

American Primitive

Cover of American Primitive

And Then There Were None

Cover of And Then There Were None

The Argonauts

Cover of The Argonauts

Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse

Cover of Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse

The Big Sleep

Cover of The Big Sleep

The Bonfire of the Vanities

Cover of The Bonfire of the Vanities

Brideshead Revisited

Cover of Brideshead Revisited

The Catcher in the Rye

Cover of The Catcher in the Rye

Citizen: An American Lyric

Cover of Citizen: An American Lyric

Cleopatra: A Life

Cover of Cleopatra: A Life

Cloud Atlas

Cover of Cloud Atlas

The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes

Cover of The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes

The Color of Magic

Cover of The Color of Magic

The Color Purple

Cover of The Color Purple

Devil in a Blue Dress

Cover of Devil in a Blue Dress

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America

Cover of The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America

The English Patient

Cover of The English Patient

An Extraordinary Union

Cover of An Extraordinary Union

Fahrenheit 451

Cover of Fahrenheit 451

The Fellowship of the Ring

Cover of The Fellowship of the Ring

The Fifth Season

Cover of The Fifth Season

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

Cover of Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

A Game of Thrones

Cover of A Game of Thrones

Giovanni's Room

Cover of Giovanni's Room

The God of Small Things

Cover of The God of Small Things

A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories

Cover of A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories

Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898

Cover of Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898

The Grapes of Wrath

Cover of The Grapes of Wrath

The Great Gatsby

Cover of The Great Gatsby

The Handmaid's Tale

Cover of The Handmaid's Tale

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Cover of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

The Haunting of Hill House

Cover of The Haunting of Hill House

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Cover of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Cover of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Cover of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Cover of The Hound of the Baskervilles

A House for Mr. Biswas

Cover of A House for Mr. Biswas

The House of Mirth

Cover of The House of Mirth

Housekeeping

Cover of Housekeeping

Howl and Other Poems

Cover of Howl and Other Poems

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Cover of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences

Cover of In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences

Interpreter of Maladies

Cover of Interpreter of Maladies

Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster

Cover of Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster

Invisible Man

Cover of Invisible Man

The Kite Runner

Cover of The Kite Runner

The Left Hand of Darkness

Cover of The Left Hand of Darkness

The Liars' Club

Cover of The Liars' Club

Life After Life

Cover of Life After Life

Life on Mars

Cover of Life on Mars

Maus: A Survivor's Tale

Cover of Maus: A Survivor's Tale

Me Talk Pretty One Day

Cover of Me Talk Pretty One Day

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Cover of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Midnight's Children

Cover of Midnight's Children

Money: A Suicide Note

Cover of Money: A Suicide Note

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game

Cover of Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game

Motherless Brooklyn

Cover of Motherless Brooklyn

Mrs. Dalloway

Cover of Mrs. Dalloway

My Brilliant Friend

Cover of My Brilliant Friend

Naked in Death

Cover of Naked in Death

Olive Kitteridge

Cover of Olive Kitteridge

On the Road

Cover of On the Road

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Cover of One Hundred Years of Solitude

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Cover of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

The Orphan Master's Son

Cover of The Orphan Master's Son

Out Stealing Horses

Cover of Out Stealing Horses

Parable of the Sower

Cover of Parable of the Sower

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood

Cover of Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Cover of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Portnoy's Complaint

Cover of Portnoy's Complaint

The Quiet American

Cover of The Quiet American

The Remains of the Day

Cover of The Remains of the Day

The Round House

Cover of The Round House

Rules of Civility

Cover of Rules of Civility

Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

Cover of Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

The Shining

Cover of The Shining

The Shipping News

Cover of The Shipping News

Silent Spring

Cover of Silent Spring

Slave to Sensation

Cover of Slave to Sensation

Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Cover of Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Stone Butch Blues

Cover of Stone Butch Blues

The Stories of John Cheever

Cover of The Stories of John Cheever

The Stranger

Cover of The Stranger

The Sun Also Rises

Cover of The Sun Also Rises

The Talented Mr. Ripley

Cover of The Talented Mr. Ripley

Tenth of December

Cover of Tenth of December

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Cover of Their Eyes Were Watching God

Things Fall Apart

Cover of Things Fall Apart

The Three-Body Problem

Cover of The Three-Body Problem

To Kill a Mockingbird

Cover of To Kill a Mockingbird

Train Dreams

Cover of Train Dreams

The Turn of the Screw

Cover of The Turn of the Screw

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Cover of The Unbearable Lightness of Being

The Underground Railroad

Cover of The Underground Railroad

Up in the Old Hotel and Other Stories

Cover of Up in the Old Hotel and Other Stories

The Virgin Suicides

Cover of The Virgin Suicides

A Visit from the Goon Squad

Cover of A Visit from the Goon Squad

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration

Cover of The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

Cover of What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

White Noise

Cover of White Noise

White Teeth

Cover of White Teeth

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Cover of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts

Cover of The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts

A composite image of some of the books of the century

The 100 best books of the 21st century

Dazzling debut novels, searing polemics, the history of humanity and trailblazing memoirs ... Read our pick of the best books since 2000

  • Read an interview with the author of our No 1 book
  • Read Ali Smith on Autumn
  • Read David Mitchell on Cloud Atlas

I Feel Bad About My Neck

By nora ephron (2006).

Perhaps better known for her screenwriting ( Silkwood , When Harry Met Sally , Heartburn ), Ephron’s brand of smart theatrical humour is on best display in her essays. Confiding and self-deprecating, she has a way of always managing to sound like your best friend – even when writing about her apartment on New York’s Upper West Side. This wildly enjoyable collection includes her droll observations about ageing, vanity – and a scorching appraisal of Bill Clinton. Read the review

Broken Glass

By alain mabanckou (2005), translated by helen stevenson (2009).

The Congolese writer says he was “trying to break the French language” with Broken Glass – a black comedy told by a disgraced teacher without much in the way of full stops or paragraph breaks. As Mabanckou’s unreliable narrator munches his “bicycle chicken” and drinks his red wine, it becomes clear he has the history of Congo-Brazzaville and the whole of French literature in his sights. Read the review

Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara in the 2011 film adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

By stieg larsson (2005), translated by steven t murray (2008).

Radical journalist Mikael Blomkvist forms an unlikely alliance with troubled young hacker Lisbeth Salander as they follow a trail of murder and malfeasance connected with one of Sweden’s most powerful families in the first novel of the bestselling Millennium trilogy. The high-level intrigue beguiled millions of readers, brought “Scandi noir” to prominence and inspired innumerable copycats. Read the review

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

By jk rowling (2000).

A generation grew up on Rowling’s all-conquering magical fantasies, but countless adults have also been enthralled by her immersive world. Book four, the first of the doorstoppers, marks the point where the series really takes off. The Triwizard Tournament provides pace and tension, and Rowling makes her boy wizard look death in the eye for the first time. Read the review

A Little Life

By hanya yanagihara (2015).

This operatically harrowing American gay melodrama became an unlikely bestseller, and one of the most divisive novels of the century so far. One man’s life is blighted by abuse and its aftermath, but also illuminated by love and friendship. Some readers wept all night, some condemned it as titillating and exploitative, but no one could deny its power. Read the review

Chronicles: Volume One

By bob dylan (2004).

Dylan’s reticence about his personal life is a central part of the singer-songwriter’s brand, so the gaps and omissions in this memoir come as no surprise. The result is both sharp and dreamy, sliding in and out of different phases of Dylan’s career but rooted in his earliest days as a Woody Guthrie wannabe in New York City. Fans are still waiting for volume two. Read the review

Bob Dylan in New York, 1963.

The Tipping Point

By malcolm gladwell (2000).

The New Yorker staff writer examines phenomena from shoe sales to crime rates through the lens of epidemiology, reaching his own tipping point, when he became a rock-star intellectual and unleashed a wave of quirky studies of contemporary society. Two decades on, Gladwell is often accused of oversimplification and cherry picking, but his idiosyncratic bestsellers have helped shape 21st-century culture. Read the review

by Nicola Barker (2007)

British fiction’s most anarchic author is as prolific as she is playful, but this freewheeling, visionary epic set around the Thames Gateway is her magnum opus. Barker brings her customary linguistic invention and wild humour to a tale about history’s hold on the present, as contemporary Ashford is haunted by the spirit of a medieval jester. Read the review

The Siege by Helen Dunmore

by Helen Dunmore (2001)

The Levin family battle against starvation in this novel set during the German siege of Leningrad. Anna digs tank traps and dodges patrols as she scavenges for wood, but the hand of history is hard to escape. Read the review

Light by M John Harrison

by M John Harrison (2002)

One of the most underrated prose writers demonstrates the literary firepower of science fiction at its best. Three narrative strands – spanning far-future space opera, contemporary unease and virtual-reality pastiche – are braided together for a breathtaking metaphysical voyage in pursuit of the mystery at the heart of reality. Read the review

by Jenny Erpenbeck (2008), translated by Susan Bernofsky (2010)

A grand house by a lake in the east of Germany is both the setting and main character of Erpenbeck’s third novel. The turbulent waves of 20th-century history crash over it as the house is sold by a Jewish family fleeing the Third Reich, requisitioned by the Russian army, reclaimed by exiles returning from Siberia, and sold again. Read the review

by Lorna Sage (2000)

A Whitbread prizewinning memoir, full of perfectly chosen phrases, that is one of the best accounts of family dysfunction ever written. Sage grew up with her grandparents, who hated each other: he was a drunken philandering vicar; his wife, having found his diaries, blackmailed him and lived in another part of the house. The author gets unwittingly pregnant at 16, yet the story has a happy ending. Read the review

Noughts & Crosses

By malorie blackman (2001).

Set in an alternative Britain, this groundbreaking piece of young adult fiction sees black people, called the Crosses, hold all the power and influence, while the noughts – white people – are marginalised and segregated. The former children’s laureate’s series is a crucial work for explaining racism to young readers.

Priestdaddy

By patricia lockwood (2017).

This may not be the only account of living in a religious household in the American midwest (in her youth, the author joined a group called God’s Gang, where they spoke in tongues), but it is surely the funniest. The author started out as the “poet laureate of Twitter”; her language is brilliant, and she has a completely original mind. Read the review

A telling description of modern power … Yanis Varoufakis.

Adults in the Room

By yanis varoufakis (2017).

This memoir by the leather-jacketed economist of the six months he spent as Greece’s finance minister in 2015 at a time of economic and political crisis has been described as “one of the best political memoirs ever written”. He comes up against the IMF, the European institutions, Wall Street, billionaires and media owners and is told how the system works – as a result, his book is a telling description of modern power. Read the review

The God Delusion

By richard dawkins (2006).

A key text in the days when the “New Atheism” was much talked about, The God Delusion is a hard-hitting attack on religion, full of Dawkins’s confidence that faith produces fanatics and all arguments for God are ridiculous. What the evolutionary biologist lacks in philosophical sophistication, he makes up for in passion, and the book sold in huge numbers. Read the review

The Cost of Living

By deborah levy (2018).

Dazzling memoir … Deborah Levy.

“Chaos is supposed to be what we most fear but I have come to believe it might be what we most want ... ” The second part of Levy’s “living memoir”, in which she leaves her marriage, is a fascinating companion piece to her deep yet playful novels. Feminism, mythology and the daily grind come together for a book that combines emotion and intellect to dazzling effect. Read the review

Tell Me How It Ends

By valeria luiselli (2016), translated by luiselli with lizzie davis (2017).

As the hysteria over immigration to the US began to build in 2015, the Mexican novelist volunteered to work as an interpreter in New York’s federal immigration court. In this powerful series of essays she tells the poignant stories of the children she met, situating them in the wider context of the troubled relationship between the Americas. Read the review

by Neil Gaiman (2002)

From the Sandman comics to his fantasy epic American Gods to Twitter, Gaiman towers over the world of books. But this perfectly achieved children’s novella, in which a plucky young girl enters a parallel world where her “Other Mother” is a spooky copy of her real-life mum, with buttons for eyes, might be his finest hour: a properly scary modern myth which cuts right to the heart of childhood fears and desires. Read the review

by Jim Crace (2013)

Crace is fascinated by the moment when one era gives way to another. Here, it is the enclosure of the commons, a fulcrum of English history, that drives his story of dispossession and displacement. Set in a village without a name, the narrative dramatises what it’s like to see the world you know come to an end, in a severance of the connection between people and land that has deep relevance for our time of climate crisis and forced migration. Read the review

Amy Adams in Arrival, the 2015 film based on a short story by Ted Chiang.

Stories of Your Life and Others

By ted chiang (2002).

Melancholic and transcendent, Chiang’s eight, high-concept sci-fi stories exploring the nature of language, maths, religion and physics racked up numerous awards and a wider audience when ‘Story of Your Life’ was adapted into the 2016 film Arrival . Read the review

The Spirit Level

By richard wilkinson and kate pickett (2009).

An eye-opening study, based on overwhelming evidence, which revealed that among rich countries, the “more equal societies almost always do better” for all. Growth matters less than inequality, the authors argued: whether the issue is life expectancy, infant mortality, crime rates, obesity, literacy or recycling, the Scandinavian countries, say, will always win out over, say, the UK. Read the review

NK Jemisin explores urgent questions of power in The Fifth Season.

The Fifth Season

By nk jemisin (2015).

Jemisin became the first African American author to win the best novel category at the Hugo awards for her first book in the Broken Earth trilogy. In her intricate and richly imagined far future universe, the world is ending, ripped apart by relentless earthquakes and volcanoes. Against this apocalyptic backdrop she explores urgent questions of power and enslavement through the eyes of three women. “As this genre finally acknowledges that the dreams of the marginalised matter and that all of us have a future,” she said in her acceptance speech, “so will go the world. (Soon, I hope.)”

Signs Preceding the End of the World

By yuri herrera (2009), translated by lisa dillman (2015).

Makina sets off from her village in Mexico with a package from a local gangster and a message for her brother, who has been gone for three years. The story of her crossing to the US examines the blurring of boundaries, the commingling of languages and the blending of identities that complicate the idea of an eventual return. Read the review

Thinking, Fast and Slow

By daniel kahneman (2011).

The Nobel laureate’s unexpected bestseller, on the minutiae of decision-making, divides the brain into two. System One makes judgments quickly, intuitively and automatically, as when a batsman decides whether to cut or pull. System Two is slow, calculated and deliberate, like long division. But psychologist Kahneman argues that, although System Two thinks it is in control, many of our decisions are really made by System One. Read the review

Spoor, the film adaptation of  Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead.

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

By olga tokarczuk (2009), translated by antonia lloyd-jones (2018).

In this existential eco-thriller, a William Blake-obsessed eccentric investigates the murders of men and animals in a remote Polish village. More accessible and focused than Flights , the novel that won Tokarczuk the Man International Booker prize, it is no less profound in its examination of how atavistic male impulses, emboldened by the new rightwing politics of Europe, are endangering people, communities and nature itself. Read the review

Days Without End

By sebastian barry (2016).

In this savagely beautiful novel set during the Indian wars and American civil war, a young Irish boy flees famine-struck Sligo for Missouri. There he finds lifelong companionship with another emigrant, and they join the army on its brutal journey west, laying waste to Indian settlements. Viscerally focused and intense, yet imbued with the grandeur of the landscape, the book explores love, gender and survival with a rare, luminous power. Read the review

Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick

Nothing to Envy

By barbara demick (2009).

Los Angeles Times journalist Barbara Demick interviewed around 100 North Korean defectors for this propulsive work of narrative non-fiction, but she focuses on just six, all from the north-eastern city of Chongjin – closed to foreigners and less media-ready than Pyongyang. North Korea is revealed to be rife with poverty, corruption and violence but populated by resilient people with a remarkable ability to see past the propaganda all around them. Read the review

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

By shoshana zuboff (2019).

An agenda-setting book that is devastating about the extent to which big tech sets out to manipulate us for profit. Not simply another expression of the “techlash”, Zuboff’s ambitious study identifies a new form of capitalism, one involving the monitoring and shaping of our behaviour, often without our knowledge, with profound implications for democracy. “Once we searched Google, but now Google searches us.” Read the review

Jimmy Corrigan- tThe Smartest Kid on Earth

Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth

By chris ware (2000).

At the time when Ware won the Guardian first book award, no graphic novel had previously won a generalist literary prize. Emotional and artistic complexity are perfectly poised in this account of a listless 36-year-old office dogsbody who is thrown into an existential crisis by an encounter with his estranged dad. Read the review

Judi Dench, left, and Cate Blanchett in the 2006 film adaptation of Notes on a Scandal.

Notes on a Scandal

By zoë heller (2003).

Sheba, a middle-aged teacher at a London comprehensive, begins an affair with her 15-year-old student - but we hear about it from a fellow teacher, the needy Barbara, whose obsessive nature drives the narrative. With shades of Patricia Highsmith, this teasing investigation into sex, class and loneliness is a dark marvel. Read the review

The Infatuations

By javier marías (2011), translated by margaret jull costa (2013).

The Spanish master examines chance, love and death in the story of an apparently random killing that gradually reveals hidden depths. Marías constructs an elegant murder mystery from his trademark labyrinthine sentences, but this investigation is in pursuit of much meatier questions than whodunnit. Read the review

Rachel Weisz and Ralph Fiennes in the 2005 film adaptation of  The Constant Gardener.

The Constant Gardener

By john le carré (2001).

The master of the cold war thriller turned his attention to the new world order in this chilling investigation into the corruption powering big pharma in Africa. Based on the case of a rogue antibiotics trial that killed and maimed children in Nigeria in the 1990s, it has all the dash and authority of his earlier novels while precisely and presciently anatomising the dangers of a rampant neo-imperialist capitalism. Read the review

The Silence of the Girls

By pat barker (2018).

If the western literary canon is founded on Homer, then it is founded on women’s silence. Barker’s extraordinary intervention, in which she replays the events of the Iliad from the point of view of the enslaved Trojan women, chimed with both the #MeToo movement and a wider drive to foreground suppressed voices. In a world still at war, it has chilling contemporary resonance. Read the review

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics

By carlo rovelli (2014).

A theoretical physicist opens a window on to the great questions of the universe with this 96-page overview of modern physics. Rovelli’s keen insight and striking metaphors make this the best introduction to subjects including relativity, quantum mechanics, cosmology, elementary particles and entropy outside of a course in advanced physics. Read the review

Ben Affleck in the 2014 film adaptation of Gone Girl.

by Gillian Flynn (2012)

The deliciously dark US crime thriller that launched a thousand imitators and took the concept of the unreliable narrator to new heights. A woman disappears: we think we know whodunit, but we’re wrong. Flynn’s stylishly written portrait of a toxic marriage set against a backdrop of social and economic insecurity combines psychological depth with sheer unputdownable flair. Read the review

by Stephen King (2000)

Written after a near-fatal accident, this combination of memoir and masterclass by fiction’s most successful modern storyteller showcases the blunt, casual brilliance of King at his best. As well as being genuinely useful, it’s a fascinating chronicle of literary persistence, and of a lifelong love affair with language and narrative. Read the review

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

By rebecca skloot (2010).

Henrietta Lacks was a black American who died in agony of cancer in a “coloured” hospital ward in 1951. Her cells, taken without her knowledge during a biopsy, went on to change medical history, being used around the world to develop countless drugs. Skloot skilfully tells the extraordinary scientific story, but in this book the voices of the Lacks children are crucial – they have struggled desperately even as billions have been made from their mother’s “HeLa” cells. Read the review

Benedict Cumberbatch in the TV adaptation of Edward St Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose novels.

Mother’s Milk

By edward st aubyn (2006).

The fourth of the autobiographical Patrick Melrose novels finds the wealthy protagonist – whose flight from atrocious memories of child abuse into drug abuse was the focus of the first books – beginning to grope after redemption. Elegant wit and subtle psychology lift grim subject matter into seductive brilliance. Read the review

This House of Grief

By helen garner (2014).

A man drives his three sons into a deep pond and swims out, leaving them to drown. But was it an accident? This 2005 tragedy caught the attention of one of Australia’s greatest living writers. Garner puts herself centre stage in an account of Robert Farquharson’s trial that combines forensic detail and rich humanity. Read the review

A mesmerising tapestry of the River Dart’s mutterings … Alice Oswald.

by Alice Oswald (2002)

This book-length poem is a mesmerising tapestry of “the river’s mutterings”, based on three years of recording conversations with people who live and work on the River Dart in Devon. From swimmers to sewage workers, boatbuilders to bailiffs, salmon fishers to ferryman, the voices are varied and vividly brought to life. Read the review

The Beauty of the Husband

By anne carson (2002).

One of Canada’s most celebrated poets examines love and desire in a collection that describes itself as “a fictional essay in 39 tangos”. Carson charts the course of a doomed marriage in loose-limbed lines that follow the switchbacks of thought and feeling from first meeting through multiple infidelities to arrive at eventual divorce.

by Tony Judt (2005)

This grand survey of Europe since 1945 begins with the devastation left behind by the second world war and offers a panoramic narrative of the cold war from its beginnings to the collapse of the Soviet bloc – a part of which Judt witnessed firsthand in Czechoslovakia’s velvet revolution. A very complex story is told with page-turning urgency and what may now be read as nostalgic faith in “the European idea”. Read the review

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

By michael chabon (2000).

A love story to the golden age of comics in New York, Chabon’s Pulitzer-winner features two Jewish cousins, one smuggled out of occupied Prague, who create an anti-fascist comic book superhero called The Escapist. Their own adventures are as exciting and highly coloured as the ones they write and draw in this generous, open-hearted, deeply lovable rollercoaster of a book. Read the review

Robert Macfarlane’s Underland (Hamish Hamilton).

by Robert Macfarlane (2019)

A beautifully written and profound book, which takes the form of a series of (often hair-raising and claustrophobic) voyages underground – from the fjords of the Arctic to the Parisian catacombs. Trips below the surface inspire reflections on “deep” geological time and raise urgent questions about the human impact on planet Earth. Read the review

The Omnivore’s Dilemma

By michael pollan (2006).

An entertaining and highly influential book from the writer best known for his advice: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” The author follows four meals on their journey from field to plate – including one from McDonald’s and a locally sourced organic feast. Pollan is a skilled, amusing storyteller and The Omnivore’s Dilemma changed both food writing and the way we see food. Read the review

Mary Beard, whose slim manifesto Women & Power became an instant feminist classic.

Women & Power

By mary beard (2017).

Based on Beard’s lectures on women’s voices and how they have been silenced, Women and Power was an enormous publishing success in the “ #MeToo ”’ year 2017. An exploration of misogyny, the origins of “gendered speech” in the classical era and the problems the male world has with strong women, this slim manifesto became an instant feminist classic. Read the review

True History of the Kelly Gang

By peter carey (2000).

Carey’s second Booker winner is an irresistible tour de force of literary ventriloquism: the supposed autobiography of 19th-century Australian outlaw and “wild colonial boy” Ned Kelly, inspired by a fragment of Kelly’s own prose and written as a glorious rush of semi-punctuated vernacular storytelling. Mythic and tender by turns, these are tall tales from a lost frontier. Read the review

Small Island

By andrea levy (2004).

Pitted against a backdrop of prejudice, this London-set novel is told by four protagonists – Hortense and Gilbert, Jamaican migrants, and a stereotypically English couple, Queenie and Bernard. These varied perspectives, illuminated by love and loyalty, combine to create a thoughtful mosaic depicting the complex beginnings of Britain’s multicultural society. Read the review

The 2015 film adaptation of Brooklyn.

by Colm Tóibín (2009)

Tóibín’s sixth novel is set in the 1950s, when more than 400,000 people left Ireland, and considers the emotional and existential impact of emigration on one young woman. Eilis makes a life for herself in New York, but is drawn back by the possibilities of the life she has lost at home. A universal story of love, endurance and missed chances, made radiant through Tóibín’s measured prose and tender understatement. Read the review

Oryx and Crake

By margaret atwood (2003).

In the first book in her dystopian MaddAddam trilogy, the Booker winner speculates about the havoc science can wreak on the world. The big warning here – don’t trust corporations to run the planet – is blaring louder and louder as the century progresses. Read the review

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

By jeanette winterson (2011).

The title is the question Winterson’s adoptive mother asked as she threw her daughter out, aged 16, for having a girlfriend. The autobiographical story behind Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit , and the trials of Winterson’s later life, is urgent, wise and moving. Read the review

Night Watch

By terry pratchett (2002).

Pratchett’s mighty Discworld series is a high point in modern fiction: a parody of fantasy literature that deepened and darkened over the decades to create incisive satires of our own world. The 29th book, focusing on unlikely heroes, displays all his fierce intelligence, anger and wild humour, in a story that’s moral, humane – and hilarious. Read the review

The 2008 film adaptation of Persepolis.

by Marjane Satrapi (2000-2003), translated by Mattias Ripa (2003-2004)

Satrapi’s autobiographical graphic novel follows her coming-of-age in the lead up to and during the Iranian revolution. In this riotous memoir, Satrapi focuses on one young life to reveal a hidden history.

Human Chain

By seamus heaney (2010).

The Nobel laureate tends to the fragments of memory and loss with moving precision in his final poetry collection. A book of elegies and echoes, these poems are infused with a haunting sense of pathos, with a line often left hanging to suspend the reader in longing and regret. Read the review

Levels of Life

By julian barnes (2013).

The British novelist combines fiction and non-fiction to form a searing essay on grief and love for his late wife, the literary agent Pat Kavanagh. Barnes divides the book into three parts with disparate themes – 19th-century ballooning, photography and marriage. Their convergence is wonderfully achieved. Read the review

Hope in the Dark

By rebecca solnit (2004).

Writing against “the tremendous despair at the height of the Bush administration’s powers and the outset of the war in Iraq”, the US thinker finds optimism in political activism and its ability to change the world. The book ranges widely from the fall of the Berlin wall to the Zapatista uprising in Mexico, to the invention of Viagra. Read the review

Claudia Rankine confronts the history of racism in the US.

Citizen: An American Lyric

By claudia rankine (2014).

From the slow emergency response in the black suburbs destroyed by hurricane Katrina to a mother trying to move her daughter away from a black passenger on a plane, the poet’s award-winning prose work confronts the history of racism in the US and asks: regardless of their actual status, who truly gets to be a citizen? Read the review

by Michael Lewis (2010)

The author of The Big Short has made a career out of rendering the most opaque subject matter entertaining and comprehensible: Moneyball tells the story of how geeks outsmarted jocks to revolutionise baseball using maths. But you do not need to know or care about the sport, because – as with all Lewis’s best writing – it’s all about how the story is told. Read the review

James McAvoy in the film adaptation of Atonement.

by Ian McEwan (2001)

There are echoes of DH Lawrence and EM Forster in McEwan’s finely tuned dissection of memory and guilt. The fates of three young people are altered by a young girl’s lie at the close of a sweltering day on a country estate in 1935. Lifelong remorse, the horror of war and devastating twists are to follow in an elegant, deeply felt meditation on the power of love and art. Read the review

The Year of Magical Thinking

By joan didion (2005).

With cold, clear, precise prose, Didion gives an account of the year her husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne, collapsed from a fatal heart attack in their home. Her devastating examination of grief and widowhood changed the nature of writing about bereavement. Read the review

White Teeth

By zadie smith (2000).

Set around the unlikely bond between two wartime friends, Smith’s debut brilliantly captures Britain’s multicultural spirit, and offers a compelling insight into immigrant family life.

The Line of Beauty

By alan hollinghurst (2004).

Oxford graduate Nick Guest has the questionable good fortune of moving into the grand west London home of a rising Tory MP. Thatcher-era degeneracy is lavishly displayed as Nick falls in love with the son of a supermarket magnate, and the novel records how Aids began to poison gay life in London. In peerless prose, Hollinghurst captures something close to the spirit of an age. Read the review

The Green Road

By anne enright (2015).

A reunion dominates the Irish novelist’s family drama, but the individual stories of the five members of the Madigan clan – the matriarch, Rosaleen, and her children, Dan, Emmet, Constance and Hanna, who escape and are bound to return – are beautifully held in balance. When the Madigans do finally come together halfway through the book, Enright masterfully reminds us of the weight of history and family. Read the review

Martin Amis recalls his ‘velvet-suited, snakeskin-booted’ youth.

by Martin Amis (2000)

Known for the firecracker phrases and broad satires of his fiction, Amis presented a much warmer face in his memoir. His life is haunted by the disappearance of his cousin Lucy, who is revealed 20 years later to have been murdered by Fred West. But Amis also has much fun recollecting his “velvet-suited, snakeskin-booted” youth, and paints a moving portrait of his father’s comic gusto as old age reduces him to a kind of “anti-Kingsley”. Read the review

The Hare with Amber Eyes

By edmund de waal (2010).

In this exquisite family memoir, the ceramicist explains how he came to inherit a collection of 264 netsuke – small Japanese ornaments – from his great-uncle. The unlikely survival of the netsuke entails De Waal telling a story that moves from Paris to Austria under the Nazis to Japan, and he beautifully conjures a sense of place. The book doubles as a set of profound reflections on objects and what they mean to us. Read the review

Outline by Rachel Cusk

Outline by Rachel

Cusk (2014).

This startling work of autofiction, which signalled a new direction for Cusk, follows an author teaching a creative writing course over one hot summer in Athens. She leads storytelling exercises. She meets other writers for dinner. She hears from other people about relationships, ambition, solitude, intimacy and “the disgust that exists indelibly between men and women”. The end result is sublime. Read the review

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

by Alison Bechdel (2006)

The American cartoonist’s darkly humorous memoir tells the story of how her closeted gay father killed himself a few months after she came out as a lesbian. This pioneering work, which later became a musical, helped shape the modern genre of “graphic memoir”, combining detailed and beautiful panels with remarkable emotional depth. Read the review

The Emperor of All Maladies

By siddhartha mukherjee (2010).

“Normal cells are identically normal; malignant cells become unhappily malignant in unique ways.” In adapting the opening lines of Anna Karenina , Mukherjee sets out the breathtaking ambition of his study of cancer: not only to share the knowledge of a practising oncologist but to take his readers on a literary and historical journey. Read the review

The Argonauts

By maggie nelson (2015).

An electrifying memoir that captured a moment in thinking about gender, and also changed the world of books. The story, told in fragments, is of Nelson’s pregnancy, which unfolds at the same time as her partner, the artist Harry Dodge, is beginning testosterone injections: “the summer of our changing bodies”. Strikingly honest, originally written, with a galaxy of intellectual reference points, it is essentially a love story; one that seems to make a new way of living possible. Read the review

The Underground Railroad

By colson whitehead (2016).

A thrilling, genre-bending tale of escape from slavery in the American deep south, this Pulitzer prize-winner combines extraordinary prose and uncomfortable truths. Two slaves flee their masters using the underground railroad, the network of abolitionists who helped slaves out of the south, wonderfully reimagined by Whitehead as a steampunk vision of a literal train. Read the review

Uncomfortable truths … Colson Whitehead.

A Death in the Family

By karl ove knausgaard (2009), translated by don bartlett (2012).

The first instalment of Knausgaard’s relentlessly self-examining six-volume series My Struggle revolves around the life and death of his alcoholic father. Whether or not you regard him as the Proust of memoir, his compulsive honesty created a new benchmark for autofiction. Read the review

by Carol Ann Duffy (2005)

A moving, book-length poem from the UK’s first female poet laureate, Rapture won the TS Eliot prize in 2005. From falling in love to betrayal and separation, Duffy reimagines romance with refreshing originality. Read the review

Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage

By alice munro (2001).

Canada’s observant and humane short story writer, who won the Nobel in 2013, is at her best in this collection. A housekeeper’s fate is changed by the pranks of her employer’s teenager daughter; an incorrigible flirt gracefully accepts his wife’s new romance in her care home. No character acts as at first expected in Munro’s stories, which are attuned to the tiniest shifts in perception. Read the review

Capital in the Twenty First Century

By thomas piketty (2013), translated by arthur goldhammer (2014).

The beautifully written product of 15 years of research, Capital made its author an intellectual star – the modern Marx – and opened readers’ eyes to how neoliberalism produces vastly increased inequalities. Full of data, theories and historical analysis, its message is clear, and prophetic: unless governments increase tax, the new and grotesque wealth levels of the rich will encourage political instability. Read the review

Sally Rooney focuses on the uncertainty of millennial life.

Normal People

By sally rooney (2018).

Rooney’s second novel, a love story between two clever and damaged young people coming of age in contemporary Ireland, confirmed her status as a literary superstar. Her focus is on the dislocation and uncertainty of millennial life, but her elegant prose has universal appeal. Read the review

A Visit from The Goon Squad

By jennifer egan (2011).

Inspired by both Proust and The Sopranos , Egan’s Pulitzer-winning comedy follows several characters in and around the US music industry, but is really a book about memory and kinship, time and narrative, continuity and disconnection. Read the review

The Noonday Demon

By andrew solomon (2001).

Emerging from Solomon’s own painful experience, this “anatomy” of depression examines its many faces – plus its science, sociology and treatment. The book’s combination of honesty, scholarly rigour and poetry made it a benchmark in literary memoir and understanding of mental health. Read the review

Tenth of December

By george saunders (2013).

This warm yet biting collection of short stories by the Booker-winning American author will restore your faith in humanity. No matter how weird the setting – a futuristic prison lab, a middle-class home where human lawn ornaments are employed as a status symbol – in these surreal satires of post-crash life Saunders reminds us of the meaning we find in small moments. Read the review

Chart-topping history of humanity … Yuval Noah Harari.

by Yuval Noah Harari (2011), translated by Harari with John Purcell and Haim Watzman (2014)

In his Olympian history of humanity, Harari documents the numerous revolutions Homo sapiens has undergone over the last 70,000 years: from new leaps in cognitive reasoning to agriculture, science and industry, the era of information and the possibilities of biotechnology. Harari’s scope may be too wide for some, but this engaging work topped the charts and made millions marvel. Read the review

Life After Life

By kate atkinson (2013).

Atkinson examines family, history and the power of fiction as she tells the story of a woman born in 1910 – and then tells it again, and again, and again. Ursula Todd’s multiple lives see her strangled at birth, drowned on a Cornish beach, trapped in an awful marriage and visiting Adolf Hitler at Berchtesgaden. But this dizzying fictional construction is grounded by such emotional intelligence that her heroine’s struggles always feel painfully, joyously real. Read the review

A stage adaptation of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night‑Time

By mark haddon (2003).

Fifteen-year-old Christopher John Francis Boone becomes absorbed in the mystery of a dog’s demise, meticulously investigating through diagrams, timetables, maps and maths problems. Haddon’s fascinating portrayal of an unconventional mind was a crossover hit with both adults and children and was adapted into a very successful stage play. Read the review

The Shock Doctrine

By naomi klein (2007).

In this urgent examination of free-market fundamentalism, Klein argues – with accompanying reportage – that the social breakdowns witnessed during decades of neoliberal economic policies are not accidental, but in fact integral to the functioning of the free market, which relies on disaster and human suffering to function. Read the review

Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee in The Road, based on Cormac McCarthy’s novel.

by Cormac McCarthy (2006)

A father and his young son, “each the other’s world entire”, trawl across the ruins of post-apocalyptic America in this terrifying but tender story told with biblical conviction. The slide into savagery as civilisation collapses is harrowing material, but McCarthy’s metaphysical efforts to imagine a cold dark universe where the light of humanity is winking out are what make the novel such a powerful ecological warning. Read the review

The Corrections

By jonathan franzen (2001).

The members of one ordinarily unhappy American family struggle to adjust to the shifting axes of their worlds over the final decades of the 20th century. Franzen’s move into realism reaped huge literary rewards: exploring both domestic and national conflict, this family saga is clever, funny and outrageously readable. Read the review

The Sixth Extinction

By elizabeth kolbert (2014).

The science journalist examines with clarity and memorable detail the current crisis of plant and animal loss caused by human civilisation (over the past half billion years, there have been five mass extinctions on Earth; we are causing another). Kolbert considers both ecosystems – the Great Barrier Reef, the Amazon rainforest – and the lives of some extinct and soon-to-be extinct creatures including the Sumatran rhino and “the most beautiful bird in the world”, the black-faced honeycreeper of Maui. Read the review

Sensuous love story … Sarah Waters.

Fingersmith

By sarah waters (2002).

Moving from the underworld dens of Victorian London to the boudoirs of country house gothic, and hingeing on the seduction of an heiress, Waters’s third novel is a drippingly atmospheric thriller, a smart study of innocence and experience, and a sensuous lesbian love story – with a plot twist to make the reader gasp. Read the review

Nickel and Dimed

By barbara ehrenreich (2001).

In this modern classic of reportage, Ehrenreich chronicled her attempts to live on the minimum wage in three American states. Working first as a waitress, then a cleaner and a nursing home aide, she still struggled to survive, and the stories of her co-workers are shocking. The US economy as she experienced it is full of routine humiliation, with demands as high as the rewards are low. Two decades on, this still reads like urgent news. Read the review

The Plot Against America

By philip roth (2004).

What if aviator Charles Lindbergh, who once called Hitler “a great man”, had won the US presidency in a landslide victory and signed a treaty with Nazi Germany? Paranoid yet plausible, Roth’s alternative-world novel is only more relevant in the age of Trump. Read the review

My Brilliant Friend

By elena ferrante (2011), translated by ann goldstein (2012).

Powerfully intimate and unashamedly domestic, the first in Ferrante’s Neapolitan series established her as a literary sensation. This and the three novels that followed documented the ways misogyny and violence could determine lives, as well as the history of Italy in the late 20th century.

Half of a Yellow Sun

By chimamanda ngozi adichie (2006).

When Nigerian author Adichie was growing up, the Biafran war “hovered over everything”. Her sweeping, evocative novel, which won the Orange prize, charts the political and personal struggles of those caught up in the conflict and explores the brutal legacy of colonialism in Africa. Read the review

Cloud Atlas

Cloud Atlas

David mitchell (2004).

The epic that made Mitchell’s name is a Russian doll of a book, nesting stories within stories and spanning centuries and genres with aplomb. From a 19th-century seafarer to a tale from beyond the end of civilisation, via 1970s nuclear intrigue and the testimony of a future clone, these dizzying narratives are delicately interlinked, highlighting the echoes and recurrences of the vast human symphony. Read the review

by Ali Smith (2016)

Smith began writing her Seasonal Quartet, a still-ongoing experiment in quickfire publishing, against the background of the EU referendum. The resulting “first Brexit novel” isn’t just a snapshot of a newly divided Britain, but a dazzling exploration into love and art, time and dreams, life and death, all done with her customary invention and wit. Read the review

A meditation on what it means to be a black American today … Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Between the World and Me

By ta-nehisi coates (2015).

Coates’s impassioned meditation on what it means to be a black American today made him one of the country’s most important intellectuals and writers. Having grown up the son of a former Black Panther on the violent streets of Baltimore, he has a voice that is challenging but also poetic. Between the World and Me takes the form of a letter to his teenage son, and ranges from the daily reality of racial injustice and police violence to the history of slavery and the civil war: white people, he writes, will never remember “the scale of theft that enriched them”. Read the review

The Amber Spyglass

By philip pullman (2000).

Children’s fiction came of age when the final part of Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy became the first book for younger readers to win the Whitbread book of the year award. Pullman has brought imaginative fire and storytelling bravado to the weightiest of subjects: religion, free will, totalitarian structures and the human drive to learn, rebel and grow. Here Asriel’s struggle against the Authority reaches its climax, Lyra and Will journey to the Land of the Dead, and Mary investigates the mysterious elementary particles that lend their name to his current trilogy: The Book of Dust. The Hollywood-fuelled commercial success achieved by JK Rowling may have eluded Pullman so far, but his sophisticated reworking of Paradise Lost helped adult readers throw off any embarrassment at enjoying fiction written for children – and publishing has never looked back. Read the review

by WG Sebald (2001), translated by Anthea Bell (2001)

Sebald died in a car crash in 2001, but his genre-defying mix of fact and fiction, keen sense of the moral weight of history and interleaving of inner and outer journeys have had a huge influence on the contemporary literary landscape. His final work, the typically allusive life story of one man, charts the Jewish disapora and lost 20th century with heartbreaking power. Read the review

From left:  Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield in the 2010 film adaptation of Never Let Me Go.

Never Let Me Go

By kazuo ishiguro (2005).

From his 1989 Booker winner The Remains of the Day to 2015’s The Buried Giant , Nobel laureate Ishiguro writes profound, puzzling allegories about history, nationalism and the individual’s place in a world that is always beyond our understanding. His sixth novel, a love triangle set among human clones in an alternative 1990s England, brings exquisite understatement to its exploration of mortality, loss and what it means to be human. Read the review

Secondhand Time

By svetlana alexievich (2013), translated by bela shayevich (2016).

The Belarusian Nobel laureate recorded thousands of hours of testimony from ordinary people to create this oral history of the Soviet Union and its end. Writers, waiters, doctors, soldiers, former Kremlin apparatchiks, gulag survivors: all are given space to tell their stories, share their anger and betrayal, and voice their worries about the transition to capitalism. An unforgettable book, which is both an act of catharsis and a profound demonstration of empathy.

by Marilynne Robinson (2004)

Robinson’s meditative, deeply philosophical novel is told through letters written by elderly preacher John Ames in the 1950s to his young son who, when he finally reaches an adulthood his father won’t see, will at least have this posthumous one-sided conversation: “While you read this, I am imperishable, somehow more alive than I have ever been.” This is a book about legacy, a record of a pocket of America that will never return, a reminder of the heartbreaking, ephemeral beauty that can be found in everyday life. As Ames concludes, to his son and himself: “There are a thousand thousand reasons to live this life, every one of them sufficient.” Read the review

Hilary Mantel captures ‘a sense of history listening and talking to itself’.

by Hilary Mantel (2009)

Mantel had been publishing for a quarter century before the project that made her a phenomenon, set to be concluded with the third part of the trilogy, The Mirror and the Light , next March. To read her story of the rise of Thomas Cromwell at the Tudor court, detailing the making of a new England and the self-creation of a new kind of man, is to step into the stream of her irresistibly authoritative present tense and find oneself looking out from behind her hero’s eyes. The surface details are sensuously, vividly immediate, the language as fresh as new paint; but her exploration of power, fate and fortune is also deeply considered and constantly in dialogue with our own era, as we are shaped and created by the past. In this book we have, as she intended, “a sense of history listening and talking to itself”. Read the review

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100 Books to Read Before You Die

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Blog – Posted on Monday, Jan 28

100 books to read before you die.

100 Books to Read Before You Die

Prepare yourself for some frightening news: you have, according to LitHub , only a finite amount of time left in your life to read. The average American, for instance, reads 12 books a year. Assuming that you’re over 25 years old, that would mean that you only have approximately 700 books — max — in your future.

Are you suddenly feeling the tightening coil of mortality? Great. If you’re now wondering where you should start, we’ve got you covered. Here are 100 books to read before you die.

If you're feeling overwhelmed by the number of great books out there, you can also take our 30-second quiz below to narrow it down quickly and get a personalized book recommendation  😉

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1. 1984 by George Orwell

Set in 1984, Winston Smith must overcome a frightening enemy: an omniscient government with an agenda. This is the book that became a standard-bearer for dystopian fiction and introduced Big Brother into our everyday vocabulary. Perhaps the mightiest of George Orwell’s works.

2. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

A young boy and a slave in 19th-century Louisiana must find their way home — with only the Mississippi River for a guide. This slender book by Mark Twain’s is so well-regarded that it’s said by many to be The Great American Novel.

3. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

In 1891, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published “A Scandal in Bohemia,” the first short story to feature Sherlock Holmes. Sharp and engrossing, this collection shows how exactly Sherlock Holmes became a cultural phenomenon and the most recognizable detective of all time.

4. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Written in only two weeks, The Alchemist has sold more than two million copies worldwide — and the magical story of Santiago’s journey to the pyramids of Egypt continues to enchant readers worldwide. A dreamy triumph.

5. The Aleph and Other Stories by Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Luis Borges’ keen insight and philosophical wisdom is on full display in this acclaimed short story collection. From “The Immortal” to “The House of Asterion,” the stories within are glittering, haunting examples of worlds created by a master of magic realism.

6. Animal Farm by George Orwell

When Old Major the boar dies on Manor Farm, two young pigs named Snowball and Napoleon rise to create new leadership in this allegorical book that is supposed to mirror the Russian Revolution of 1917 — and the ensuing Stalinist Soviet Union. Animal Farm is a stunning achievement, and not just because Orwell proved that a story about pigs can be terrifying.

7. Aesop's Fables by Aesop

This enduring collection of tales was passed down through oral tradition more than two millennia ago. More than simple stories, Aesop’s stories reflect every aspect of human nature.

8. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Alice is only a young seven-year old girl when she notices a White Rabbit with a pocket watch running by. Thus begins Alice’s adventures in a land that is not all that it seems. Lewis Carroll published this novel in 1865, sending it down the rabbit hole and straight into the hallowed halls of children’s most treasured literature.

9. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

If you like lengthy books in which to immerse yourself, then this is a real treat. This epic novel tells the parallel stories of Anna Karenina and Konstantin Levin over a span of 800+ pages — dealing with social change, politics, theology, and philosophy in nineteenth-century Russia all the while.

10. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

To read Anne of the Green Gables is to fall in love with its characters — particularly its protagonist, a fiery young girl with an imagination the size of castles. From coming-of-age arcs to the occasional drunken episode, this beloved classic by L.M. Montgomery has it all: laughs, pain, and heart.

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11. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

As William Faulkner attested: “I set out deliberately to write a tour-de-force. Before I ever put pen to paper and set down the first word I knew what the last word would be and almost where the last period would fall.” This is the grueling story of the Bundren family’s slow, tortuous journey to bury Addie, their wife and mother, in her hometown of Mississippi.  

12. Beloved by Toni Morrison

The winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1988 and a finalist for the 1987 National Book Award, Beloved is Toni Morrison’s magnum opus about Sethe, a former slave whose house may or may not be haunted by the ghost of the baby she had to murder. A peerless work about slavery, race, and the bonds of family.  

13. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

This children's book has an unmistakably distinct narrator — Death. Set in Nazi Germany, it follows Liesel, a young girl in her new foster care home. As the world around her begins to crumble, Liesel must find solace in books and the power of words.

14. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

One of the giants of the dystopian genre. Having already shaken up the literary world when it was first published, Brave New World is relevant even today as it urges readers to ask questions about autonomy, hedonism, and our definition of “utopia.”

15. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

In a testimony to Albert Einstein's admiration of The Brothers Karamazov , novelist C.P. Snow once wrote, " The Brothers Karamazov — that for him in 1919 was the supreme summit of all literature." You can step into Einstein’s footsteps yourself by reading this powerful, stirring meditation on God and the power of free will.

16. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Captain John Yossarian, a U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bombardier, longs to return home. But that is a little hard when he is situated in the middle of nowhere — or, more specifically, the fictional island of Pianosa in the Mediterranean Sea. A searing satire that is defining of its times.

17. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

Meet Holden Caulfield: a teenager who, with no plans in mind, decides to leave his boarding school in Pennsylvania and head back home to New York. In The Catcher in the Rye , J.D. Salinger has created perhaps the original “cynical adolescent” — and a wistful story about the meaning of youth.

18. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

Eleven-year-old Charlie Bucket’s life is turned upside down when he finds a Golden Ticket that gives him access to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. So are young readers’ heads, as they experience the magic of the Chocolate Factory (and Oompa-Loompas) for the first time in Roald Dahl’s cherished children’s book.

19. Charlotte's Web by E. B White

Wilbur, the runt of his litter, is spared from certain death, thanks to a little girl named Fern. But his life takes a turn when he is sold to Homer Zuckerman, who eventually plans to butcher him, and meets a kind-hearted spider called Charlotte. Charlotte's Web is a staple of children’s literature — and the bestselling children’s paperback of all time.

20. The Call of the Wild by Jack London

In the 1890s, a young dog named Buck hears the call of the wild. But can he answer it, especially when nature and man’s cruelty are stacked against him? This rugged, gripping novel has inspired millions of adventures for many years.

21. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

It is an indeterminate year in the future and Alex is arrested by the government in the midst of an ultraviolent youth cultural rebellion. A Clockwork Orange is one of the most enduring examinations of good and evil, and what it means to be free to choose one or the other.

22. The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse

Reading P.G. Wodehouse is one of the few things in life that will reliably delight. And The Code of the Woosters is Wodehouse at his sparkling best: a romp through Britain with an uproarious cast, including Jeeves, Bertie, and cow-creamers.

23. The Collected of Edgar Allan Po by Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe is synonymous with horror today and this is the collection that proves it. Packed with his best short stories, including “The Cask of Amontillado,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart,” it completely presents Poe’s dark imagination and uncanny ability to capture the shadowy depths of the human heart.

24. The Color Purple: A Novel by Alice Walker

The acclaimed story of two women and the strength of their bond in the racist society of 1980s America. The Color Purple won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, deservedly making Alice Walker the first African-American woman to receive the award.

25. Coraline by Neil Gaiman

Young Coraline Jones has just moved into an old house when she discovers a mysterious door. What lies beyond might even be beyond the limits of your wildest imagination in this dark fantasy novella that has become a universal favorite.

26. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Edmond Dantès, a young Frenchman, is falsely accused and imprisoned without trial in an island fortress off the coast of France — until the day he escapes and sets out to avenge himself. The Count of Monte Cristo is revenge tale for the ages.

27. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

In this 1866 epic novel, a poor student in St. Petersburg makes the fateful decision to rob and kill an elderly pawnbroker for her money. The work that made Fyodor Dostoevsky one of the greats, Crime and Punishment remains a hallmark study of greed, morality, and the dangers of radicalism.

28. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

Narrated by Christopher John Francis Boone, a 15-year old with autism, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is the story of the night that Christopher finds a dead dog — and the fallout. Haddon invites readers to see the world through another’s eyes in this captivating mystery novel with a twist that instantly became one of the must-read books of the 21st-century.

29. The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes

Lying on his deathbed, corrupt soldier and politician Artemio Cruz is surrounded by family and a priest as they attempt to coax him into confessing his betrayals and crooked dealings. The Death of Artemio Cruz is a milestone in the boom of Latin-American literature .

30. Diary of a Madman and Other Stories by Lu Xun

Inspired by Nikolai Gogol’s short story of the same title, “Diary of a Madman” made Lu Xun one of the leading Chinese writers of his time. But there’s more to Xun than just “Diary of a Madman,” as evidenced by this complete collection of his short stories.

Are you craving more short story collections like Diary of a Madman and Other Stories? You can get your fill in this post that has 21 of the best short story collections .

31. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

Anne Frank was 13 years old when she and her family went in hiding. Of the diary that was published posthumously by Frank’s father, John F. Kennedy once said: "Of all the multitudes who throughout history have spoken for human dignity in times of great suffering and loss, no voice is more compelling than that of Anne Frank."

32. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

Few authors are so exalted that they’re recognized by their first names, and even fewer books are as lofty as The Divine Comedy . Dante’s journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven is a feat of imagination and an undisputed giant in world literature.

33. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Considered one of the greatest works in the pantheon of world literature, Don Quixote follows the ill-fated adventures of Alonso Quixano: a middle-aged man who loses his sanity and believes himself to be one of the knights in shining armor he has read about in chivalric books.

34. Dracula by Bram Stoker

A small band of friends must stop Count Dracula from coming to England and spreading the curse of the undead all over the continent. Published in 1897, Dracula boasts the original vampire and lastingly re-defined gothic fantasy.

35. Emma by Jane Austen

In Regency England, a young woman named Emma Woodhouse is determined to matchmake the friends around her. Hijinks and plenty of revelations of the heart ensue. Of her titular character, Jane Austen wrote, "I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like." But anyone who reads the book will end up falling in love with imperfect and high-spirited Emma.

36. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Perhaps the singular work that doubles as both an incisive commentary on mass media and a bookworm’s worst nightmare. In Ray Bradbury’s towering dystopian masterpiece, Guy Montag is a conflicted fireman who is intimately familiar with fahrenheit 451: the temperature at which books burn.

37. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The grandfather of monster fiction, Frankenstein has fanned the imaginations of horror and suspense lovers around the world. Mary Shelley’s enduring legacy of a mad scientist and his tortured, anguished creation (with a badass name ) is to this day considered to be the first science-fiction book ever written.

38. The Giver by Lois Lowry

12-year old Jonas lives in a seemingly utopian society. However, when he is assigned to take over as the next Receiver of Memory, he discovers that there’s more to his community than meets the eye. An astute, lyrical children’s book.  

39. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

A retelling of John Milton’s Paradise Lost for the 21st century, The Golden Compass transports readers into a world of animal familiars, parallel universes, and brave young girls who could make a difference.

40. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

“Goodnight room. Goodnight moon. Goodnight cow jumping over the moon.” Beautiful illustrations and perfect rhyme have made Margaret Wise Brown’s Goodnight Moon a cherished favorite of children everywhere.

41. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Pip’s journey from a poor apprentice to a gentleman has become the stuff of literary legend. First published in 1861, Great Expectations remains one of Charles Dickens’ finest and most famous works .

42. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

When Nick Carraway settles down in decadent 1920s New York for a summer, he has no idea what awaits him in the booming parties, Daisy Buchanan, and the mysterious figure at the center of it all, Jay Gatsby. In The Great Gatsby , F. Scott Fitzgerald has crafted a masterwork for the ages and a haunting contemplation of the American Dream.

43. Grimm's Fairy Tales by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

Often said to be Disney for grown-ups. Beware: Grimm's Fairy Tales are much crueler and cruder than the stories that most children know.

44. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

Savage and brilliant, Jonathan Swift bends his satirical eye on humankind himself in Gulliver’s Travels . Gulliver's Travels is one of the bestselling parodies of all time for a reason.

45. Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Who is Hamlet, Prince of Denmark — and is he truly seeing the ghost of his father or is he going mad? William Shakespeare’s most famous work boasts not only one of the most quoted lines in history (“To be or not to be”), but also the complex character who ever belonged on stage (Hamlet).

46. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

In this terrifying vision of the future, Margaret Atwood imagines a society governed by gender discrimination. More than a tour de force in the dystopian genre, The Handmaid’s Tale is a grim, evergreen inquisition of identity, marriage, and what it means to be free.

47. Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling

The worldwide phenomenon of the boy who lived is known by pretty much every child and adult alive today, but if you haven’t given it a chance yet, this is the time to do it. Follow eleven-year-old Harry, Ron, and Hermione as they grow up, study magic, and learn how to defeat the Dark Lord — and try to make it out alive.

Have you read Harry Potter and you're not sated yet? Don't forget to check out these 20 great books like Harry Potter .

48. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Charles Marlow is dispatched to the Congo in Africa on behalf of a Belgian trading company — but he gets more than he bargained for in the jungle’s literal heart of darkness. A grim masterpiece that catapulted Joseph Conrad among the ranks of the great writers.  

49. Here's to You, Jesusa! by Elena Poniatowska

Fiery and penetrating, this passionate story of one of Mexico’s most challenging times provides the unique perspective of women in the midst of heated combat as they struggle to survive.

50. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Arthur Dent is the only man who survived the destruction of Earth. Now he must journey through the galaxy, alongside an alien writer who’s working on an electronic book that’s only called The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy .

51. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

Bilbo Baggins only wanted a peaceful dinner party. What he gets instead is something that’s not perhaps to his taste: a band of twelve dwarves in his house, a dragon to defeat, and an epic adventure. And it all begins with this iconic first line: “In a hole in the ground lived a hobbit.”

52. Holes by Louis Sachar

Stanley Yelnats is that unlucky boy who gets sent to Camp Green Lake: a Texan juvenile corrections facility where boys dig holes all day in a dried-up lake. In this popular children’s book, three storylines intertwine to solve century-old mysteries.

53. Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar

An ingenious, one-of-a-kind novel — literally. The story of Horacio Oliveira, a well-read bohemian, is divided into 155 chapters that can be read in multiple orders: sequentially or by following the suggested reading guide, which prompts readers to jump around various chapters and makes 99 of the 155 chapters expendable.

54. The Iliad by Homer

Having been born into an age of heroes and warriors, Homer created a work of art that was deserving of them. Relive the fall of Troy and the glory of Achilles in this epic poem that has survived for a couple thousand years and counting.

55. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

A young black man grows up in the South before moving to New York and becoming a spokesman for “the Brotherhood” in 1950s Harlem. Invisible Man is key part of American literature that probingly examines racism, black identity, and why some are more invisible in society than others.

56. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

This landmark novel that re-defined narrative consciousness centers on the eponymous Jane Eyre , an orphan born in 1800s England. As Jane grows up, she takes her destiny into her own hands — which becomes particularly poignant when she meets the brooding Mr. Rochester at Thornfield Hall.

57. Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne

This definitive science fiction novel shares the story of Otto Lidenbrock: a professor who ventures to nowhere else but the center of the Earth with his nephew Axel, and Hans, a guide.

58. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

Considered by many to be one of the most luminous literary works of the 19th-century, Les Misérables spans the tumultuous 17 years from 1815 to 1932, during which politics, justice, religion, and love all come to a head in the June Rebellion in Paris.

59. Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Pi Patel is only a young boy when his freighter to North America sinks and he’s stuck on a small lifeboat with an orangutan, a hyena — and a tiger. Dramatic, humorous, and thoughtful, Yann Martel’s book made waves when it was published in 2001.

60. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis

Lions, witches, talking fauns, and Turkish delights — oh my! C.S. Lewis’ allegorical story about the four Pevensie siblings who walk into a closet and disappear into the land of Narnia has captivated children (and adults) for decades.

61. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Not many stories are as unanimously beloved as this short one by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Once readers find themselves the shoes of the little prince and seeing through his eyes, they won’t be able to look away.

62. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

The four March sisters — Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy — grow up and come of age in this seminal work of family drama. They might be women, but they are by no means little in the halls of great literature.

63. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

The story of Humbert Humbert’s obsessive quest for 12-year old Dolores Haze has haunted and captivated audiences for decades. Lolita is dark, sardonic, and ultimately genius study of madness and unreliability.  

64. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

No author casts a greater shadow over one genre quite like J.R.R. Tolkien and epic fantasy . Start here with the trilogy that launched it all: The Lord of the Rings and Frodo’s quest to rid Middle-Earth of Sauron once and for all.

65. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fell in love when they were young and were untimely torn apart by Fermina’s father. But what happens when Florentino never forgets about Fermina — and decides to make his intentions known again after fifty years of separation? Love in the Time of Cholera is a towering magical realist classic.

66. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Who is Madame Bovary? Gustave Flaubert once replied: “Madame Bovary, c'est moi.” And so he does show through this undisputedly great novel that Madame Bovary — a longing, brutally, introspective, hedonistic woman — lives in all of us.

67. Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

What would you do if you wake up one morning and discover that you are now an insect? Franz Kafka answers this burning question in this short novel, regarded by many as a master stroke of genius.

68. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

Man faces off against white whale in this 700-page story that remains one of the grandest works about morality and the nature of obsession. A must-read, and not just for the adventure.

69. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Clarissa Dalloway said that she would buy the flowers herself, or so begins Mrs Dalloway . More than a mere story, Virginia Woolf breathes new life into stream of consciousness storytelling in this probing, gentle, and deeply transformative portrait of one ordinary woman’s mind.

70. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

The most famous of Christie’s detective stories featuring Monsieur Poirot and his formidable ‘grey cells.’ When a snowstorm grounds the luxurious Orient Express, death ensues onboard — and it’s up to the detective to piece together the puzzle, especially since everyone on the train seems to have an alibi. Looking for more books by the Mistress of Mystery? We've got you covered with the 10 best Agatha Christie books .

71. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

George Milton and Lennie Small make an odd couple, working on California’s dusty ranches and dreaming of a shack of their own. But all might be lost when they move to a new farm — even each other. This is Steinbeck at his peak in this heart-wrenching story about friendship and loss. (And he didn't just write one amazing book — head to our guide to the 15 best John Steinbeck books to discover more!)

72. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

In this short novel, Santiago is an old fisherman who one day happens upon a marlin that might be able to make him rich. One of Hemingway’s best , The Old Man and the Sea won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953.

73. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Young Oliver Twist is an orphaned boy living on the streets when he escapes to London in the 1800s. But that’s just the start of his story, as Oliver goes on to befriend a gang of juvenile thieves — and a pickpocket named The Artful Dodger.  

74. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Gabriel Garcia Marquez covers seven generations of one family while exploring themes of fatalism, subjectivity, death, and time in a world where magical elements combine seamlessly with real life. One of the most important works in Spanish literature and a landmark of magical realism in its own right.

75. One Thousand and One Nights by Unknown

You might vaguely know the gist of the story behind One Thousand and One Arabian Nights , but have you ever actually read it before? This is the must-read translation, as new bride Scheherazade must wittily come up with new tales to escape her execution night after night.

76. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

Adela Quested is to be engaged to Ronny Moore in Chandrapore, which necessitates a journey to India in the 1920s. This novel, regarded as one of the must-read books of the twentieth century, was instrumental in launching a postcolonial discourse against the backdrop of the Indian independence movement.

77. Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo

In the town of Comala, where ghosts are indistinguishable from the living, young Juan Preciado goes to look for his estranged father. In his only published novel, Rulfo weaves together a story that’s told in such a way that readers are left wondering who’s truly alive and who's dead — and whether there’s more to the town than first meets the eye.

78. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

From the mind of Norton Juster comes a magical journey. Milo is a young boy who’s beyond bored of everything — that is, until a tollbooth appears in his room one day and transports him into a land that’s the opposite of dull. The Phantom Tollbooth is a classic children's fantasy.

79. Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren

You won’t find many characters like Pippi Longstocking. Freckled, red-haired, and nine-years old, Pippi also happens to be the strongest girl in the world: she can lift a horse with one hand . Think of all the adventures she can go on with strength like that!

80. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

The source of film and TV adaptations, sequels, and several hundred reimaginings, Pride and Prejudice is one of the cornerstones of English literature. Through wit, sarcasm, and humor, this 19th-century novel centers on the five unmarried (gasp!) Bennet sisters while exploring themes of family, society, and, yes, love.

81. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Stevens, a butler in post-World War II England, takes a trip through the countryside. This celebrated novel is all the more powerful for its deceptive simplicity, as it shows that the quietest stories are sometimes the most dangerous.

82. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Shakespeare’s masterpiece tells the story of two young lovers separated by a bitter family feud. Featuring one of the most well-known couples ever, Romeo and Juliet has launched a legion of fans.

83. A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket

The Baudelaire siblings have the worst luck ever. No wonder their stories are called A Series of Unfortunate Events . First their parents die in a fire, then they are shipped off to a remote house — and then they discover that their new caretaker, Count Olaf, wants to kill them! Now they must have their wits about them and rely on each other more than ever if they are to survive Count Olaf’s schemes.

84. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Young Daniel Sampere finds The Shadow of the Wind in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. In this story-within-a-story, Daniel uncovers the mystery behind the book’s author and must now protect it from someone who’s determined to burn every single copy in existence.

85. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Under Kurt Vonnegut’s sure touch, Billy Pilgrim’s journey through time during World War II is rendered scathingly well, making Slaughterhouse-Five one of the most greatest anti-war books ever written.

86. The Sound of the Mountain by Yasunari Kawabata

As the patriarch of his family in Kamakura, Ogata Shingo is troubled when his memory begins failing and he keeps hearing the mountains shaking in his sleep. A sparse and beautiful meditation on old age from a celebrated Nobel Prize-winning author.  

87. The Stranger by Albert Camus

In Albert Camus’ own words: “In our society any man who does not weep at his mother's funeral runs the risk of being sentenced to death.” Such is the absurdity of life that Meursault faces in this dense crowning jewe l of Camus’ career.

88. The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu

Dating to the early years of the eleventh-century, this ancient classic of Japanese literature is the famous portrayal of Hikaru Genji’s life, love affairs, and aristocratic customs in Heian Period Japan.

89. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

The first novel in an acclaimed trilogy, Things Fall Apart is the seminal novel of the African experience. More than that, it is a wrenching tragedy of one man’s futile fight against change as British rule overcomes the land.

90. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

In this classic novel of adventure, d’Artagnan is a young man in search of his destiny when he joins the Musketeers of the Guard. But his life intertwines inextricably with another’s journey when he meets Athos, Porthos, and Aramis: the King’s most elite musketeers.

91. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Scout Finch is an ordinary girl living with her brother and father in Alabama when the arrest of a black man, Tom Robinson, upends everyone’s lives. A coming-of-age in the South becomes a gripping courtroom thriller in this Pulitzer Prize-winning book that may rank up there as one of the most beloved books of all time .

92. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Buried gold is the name and pirates are the game in this 1883 story by Robert Louis Stevenson, which became the definitive adventure book for many generations of readers.

93. Ulysses by James Joyce

Controversial and magnificent, Ulysses is James Joyce’s answer to the modernist movement: a puzzlingly sweeping novel that centers on the day of one Leopold Bloom in Dublin.

94. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Up there as one of the greatest works ever written, War and Peace is Tolstoy’s epic account of two young men and one young woman, as they stand amidst the swirling spectre of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812.

95. Watership Down by Richard Adams

Hazel, Fiver, Blackberry, and crew are the hardiest band of adventurers that you’ll ever meet, with one caveat: they’re rabbits. And they’re on the escape, looking for a new warren to call home. Watership Down is a classic for children and adults alike.

96. Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne

Haven’t you read Winnie the Pooh yet? Think, think, think! No? Gosh, you really haven’t? Oh, bother! Well, don’t worry, there’s still time to fix that catastrophic error by picking up this cornerstone of children’s literature and joining Winnie, Piglet, and friends on the journey of a lifetime.

97. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

A young and distressed woman dressed entirely in white one day appears to Walter Hartright, kicking off the plot of The Woman in White , often described as one of the finest mystery novels ever written.  

98. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Dorothy and friends go on an adventure, and who knows what awaits them at the end of the Yellow Brick Road? Frank L. Baum’s treasured classic was famously adapted into the first color film ever made, which is befitting of this whimsical, charmingly bright story.

99. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

It was a dark and stormy night… when Mrs. Whatsit walks through the door of 13-year old Meg Murry’s house, shortly followed by Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which. A bewitching, groundbreaking fantasy that's a feat of worldbuilding by a master of the genre.

100. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Emily Brontë's only novel is a staggering tour de force: a violent, gothic tragedy about the passionate, tempestuous affair between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff — and the havoc that it threatens to wreak upon the moors.

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11 Life-Changing Books That Everyone Should Read At Least Once

Posted: July 7, 2023 | Last updated: November 9, 2023

<p>Have you ever read that one remarkable book that has the power to captivate and transform lives? An online community user on an online forum asked, ‘What is one book everyone should read at least once in their lives?’ And all the avid book readers gathered to reveal the literary gems that have touched the …</p>

Have you ever read that one remarkable book that has the power to captivate and transform lives? An online community user on an online forum asked, ‘What is one book everyone should read at least once in their lives?’ And all the avid book readers gathered to reveal the literary gems that have touched the …

<p>A great quote by Ray Bradbury is, "Evil only has the power that we give it.”</p>

The Monster at the End of This Book By Jon Stone

The book features the character Grover from Sesame Street, who is afraid of the monster at the end of the book and tries various methods to prevent the reader from turning the pages. This suggestion brought back many childhood memories among users. Someone said, "I still have my copy from when I was little. My mom read it to me uncountable times. Her patience and enthusiasm were amazing. Turned me into an avid reader from those days on."

<p>“Check out Sam Harris' Waking up app. It's has the most in-depth content on this topic.” Many others agree to check it out. </p>

Man’s Search for Meaning By Victor Frankl

Many Redditors believe that this book by Victor Frankl has the power to change lives. A user stated that he read the entire book during an 11-hour flight and was utterly captivated by its content. The book gradually began to influence his life over the following months. Frankl’s philosophy is truly inspiring. 

"This book helped me get out of my funk, highly recommend it." Another added. 

<p>A writer said, "Realizing in my twenties that “older” people were just as immature as kids, only permanently so. Terrifying moment. You grow up looking up to those people, and when the pedestal you put them on falls, you look down on them, still powerless to change the world."</p> <p>Rightfully so, "Wisdom doesn't always come with age." said the other. </p>

The Count of Monte Cristo By Alexandre Dumas

A user said, "In my opinion, the best book ever written. The movie was excellent too."

Someone also wrote, "It's a shining example of how enjoyable reading can be. While reading it, I legit laughed, cried, smiled, seethed with rage, etc.. It’s also beautifully written on top of that." 

<p>Another book that is a widely appreciated book and highly regarded within the Reddit community is 1984. According to a user, "The book is a warning about the slow evolution into a totalitarian state with no individual rights… And at least half has already come to pass. It was a warning, not a how-to manual."</p>

1984 By George Orwell

Another book that is a widely appreciated book and highly regarded within the Reddit community is 1984. According to a user, "The book is a warning about the slow evolution into a totalitarian state with no individual rights… And at least half has already come to pass. It was a warning, not a how-to manual."

<p>A user shared, "Just finished this a few weeks ago and wow, was I blown away. Historical fiction is not usually my cup of tea, but I was hooked. I couldn't put the thing down at a few different points in the book."</p>

East of Eden By John Steinbeck

A user shared, "Just finished this a few weeks ago and wow, was I blown away. Historical fiction is not usually my cup of tea, but I was hooked. I couldn't put the thing down at a few different points in the book."

<p>While some users claim that crystals contain healing powers, most commented that these lack scientific evidence. A Redditor pointed out, "There’s no scientific proof that crystals have any significant effect on energy, emotions, or mental health. </p> <p>"I've tried researching where those people get their "science" for their crystals, energy, etc. Nothing. I could find nothing. It's all word of mouth." Another added. </p>

The Little Prince By Antoine de Saint Exupery

A person wrote, "I didn't read this one until I was an adult. I'm not sure how much the lessons would stick if I were a kid, but beyond any of the suggestions in this post, this is the one I think is potentially important."

"I was a total mess after watching the movie. After crying myself to dehydration I went to buy a copy of the book to read for the first time." Another added. 

<p>A Redditor recommended trying sound therapy for spiritual awakening. </p> <p>"It gave me answers to questions I wasn't even asking. My place uses these cards to measure your energy concerning anxiety, depression, guilt, addiction, etc. Once they determine what's afflicting you, they use minerals to retest your energy, and based on that, they put speakers on the correlating body part at the correlating frequency. </p> <p>It's weird to have it done. It worked, though, and I've never been the same."</p>

The Outsiders By S E Hinton

According to a user, "This was definitely my favorite book growing up, even before the movie was made. I still recall the opening lines which were also the closing lines: as I stepped into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie theater, I had only two things on my mind–Paul Newman and a ride home."

Another said, "I took out this book from the school library repeatedly. I read it so much I wore it out and they had to get a fresh copy. The librarian offered the worn copy to me, and decades later I still have it."

<p>Another fun comment said, "Talking like you're on a talk show/podcast to no one but yourself."</p> <p>A Redditor also shared, “When I’m cooking alone, I like to pretend I’m running my cooking show with an audience."</p>

The Gift of Fear By Gavin de Becker

A Redditor highly recommended and shared that after reading this book, so many things about his life came into focus with a ‘why’ attached and some tentative ‘how to fix’ shimmering into view.

Someone also said, "I have multiple copies of this book, and I give them away if I bring it up on a conversation. Everyone should read this book. Learning to trust your intuition can save your life."

<p>A user stated, "A beautiful story that sets the picture for what a future might be. All people need to read this to understand the value of books and passed down knowledge, as well as intellectual freedom."</p> <p>Another added, "I liked the plot very much and it was easy to get used to the role of the main character. I recommend this wonderful dystopia."</p>

Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury

A user stated, "A beautiful story that sets the picture for what a future might be. All people need to read this to understand the value of books and passed down knowledge, as well as intellectual freedom."

Another added, "I liked the plot very much and it was easy to get used to the role of the main character. I recommend this wonderful dystopia."

<p>“It covers many things that are not related to meditation and spirituality, but there are a lot of episodes on Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Sufism, and Zoroastrianism (Very diverse).</p> <p>The podcast talks more about the Dharmic Religions because it's based in India. There are two shows available one in Hindi another one in English.”</p>

Pride and Prejudice By Jane Austen

Someone shared. "Because it’s a classic, romantic but witty, and mostly it analyzes with humor and acuity the human nature, flaws included. The characters learn to evolve and to change their mind, so Jane Austen warns the reader to be open and not stuck on rushed judgments, because the first impressions don’t always hold the truth."

<p>The network, which is mentioned several times throughout the Reddit thread, has its own podcast. Plus, many of the guests that appear have their own. “Anyone who’s a part of the Be Here Now network. I also love Jack Kornfield, Raghu Markus, and Krishna Dass (all have podcasts.)” Agrees one user. </p> <p>Another says, “I would recommend the OP to check out a handful of shows on the BHN Network and see who they mesh with.”</p>

To Kill a Mockingbird

Many people are sad this book has been banned form some school systems. Someone writes, “There is so much about growing up and how people are treated for being different. It doesn’t just address how people with different skin color are not treated fairly, but with Boo Radley, it goes over how society mistreats those who are mentally different, and it also shows a kid who isn’t treated kindly for being in a lower class of wealth. There is so much to learn as Scout is a learning narrator. It respectfully addresses social issues.”

<p>"What is an item that profits off stupid people? And the responses poured in. We have picked up these 11 items that Redditors believe are designed for stupid people.</p> <p><a href="https://healthmeanswealth.com/items-for-stupid-people/">These 11 Items Were Designed for Stupid People</a></p>

These 12 Items Were Designed for Stupid People

"What is an item that profits off stupid people? And the responses poured in. We have picked up these 11 items that Redditors believe are designed for stupid people.

<p>Recently, an online community member asked, "What do you think is the biggest mistake people make in relationships?" And the people shared their insights on the surefire relationship blunders.</p> <p><a href="https://healthmeanswealth.com/these-12-mistakes-are-guaranteed-to-tank-a-relationship/">These 12 Mistakes are Guaranteed to Tank a Relationship</a></p>

12 Mistakes are Guaranteed to Tank a Relationship

Recently, an online community member asked, "What do you think is the biggest mistake people make in relationships?" And the people shared their insights on the surefire relationship blunders.

These 12 Mistakes are Guaranteed to Tank a Relationship

<p>A person wrote, "The Big Lie technique relies on the idea that people will eventually accept it as accurate if you keep saying a false statement repeatedly without backing down. It seems more believable when people hear something repeatedly from different sources, even if it initially sounds unbelievable. However, just because many people say something doesn’t make it automatically accurate."</p>

11 Things People Brag About That Are Actually Pretty Lame

A curious Redditor recently asked, "What is something that people believe makes them virtuous but in reality means nothing??" And the answers were nothing short of amusing!

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Trump’s Harsh Punishment Was Made Possible by This New York Law

The little-known measure meant hundreds of millions in penalties in the civil fraud case brought by Attorney General Letitia James.

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Letitia James sits in court behind Donald Trump, who is blurred and out of focus.

By Ben Protess and Jonah E. Bromwich

The $355 million penalty that a New York judge ordered Donald J. Trump to pay in his civil fraud trial might seem steep in a case with no victim calling for redress and no star witness pointing the finger at Mr. Trump. But a little-known 70-year-old state law made the punishment possible.

The law, often referred to by its shorthand, 63(12), which stems from its place in New York’s rule book, is a regulatory bazooka for the state’s attorney general, Letitia James. Her office has used it to aim at a wide range of corporate giants: the oil company Exxon Mobil, the tobacco brand Juul and the pharma executive Martin Shkreli.

On Friday, the law enabled Ms. James to win an enormous victory against Mr. Trump. Along with the financial penalty , the judge barred Mr. Trump from running a business in New York for three years. His adult sons were barred for two years.

The judge also ordered a monitor, Barbara Jones, to assume more power over Mr. Trump’s company, and asked her to appoint an independent executive to report to her from within the company.

A lawyer for Mr. Trump, Christopher M. Kise, reacted with fury, saying “the sobering future consequences of this tyrannical abuse of power do not just impact President Trump.”

“When a court willingly allows a reckless government official to meddle in the lawful, private and profitable affairs of any citizen based on political bias, America’s economic prosperity and way of life are at extreme risk of extinction,” he said.

In the Trump case, Ms. James accused the former president of inflating his net worth to obtain favorable loans and other financial benefits. Mr. Trump, she argued, defrauded his lenders and in doing so, undermined the integrity of New York’s business world.

Mr. Trump’s conduct “distorts the market,” Kevin Wallace, a lawyer for Ms. James’s office, said during closing arguments in the civil fraud trial.

“It prices out honest borrowers and can lead to more catastrophic results,” Mr. Wallace said, adding, “That’s why it’s important for the court to take the steps to protect the marketplace to prevent this from happening again.”

Yet the victims — the bankers who lent to Mr. Trump — testified that they were thrilled to have him as a client. And while a parade of witnesses echoed Ms. James’s claim that the former president’s annual financial statements were works of fiction, none offered evidence showing that Mr. Trump explicitly intended to fool the banks.

That might seem unusual, but under 63(12), such evidence was not necessary to find fraud.

The law did not require the attorney general to show that Mr. Trump had intended to defraud anyone or that his actions resulted in financial loss.

“This law packs a wallop,” said Steven M. Cohen, a former federal prosecutor and top official in the attorney general’s office, noting that it did not require the attorney general to show that anyone had been harmed.

With that low bar, Justice Arthur F. Engoron, the judge presiding over the case, sided with Ms. James on her core claim before the trial began, finding that Mr. Trump had engaged in a pattern of fraud by exaggerating the value of his assets in statements filed to his lenders.

Ms. James’s burden of proof at the trial was higher: To persuade the judge that Mr. Trump had violated other state laws, she had to convince him that the former president acted with intent. And some of the evidence helped her cause: Two of Mr. Trump’s former employees testified that he had final sign-off on the financial statements, and Mr. Trump admitted on the witness stand that he had a role in drafting them.

Still, her ability to extract further punishments based on those other violations is also a product of 63(12), which grants the attorney general the right to pursue those who engage in “repeated fraudulent or illegal acts.”

In other fraud cases, authorities must persuade a judge or jury that someone was in fact defrauded. But 63(12) required Ms. James only to show that conduct was deceptive or created “an atmosphere conducive to fraud.” Past cases suggest that the word “fraud” itself is effectively a synonym for dishonest conduct, the attorney general argued in her lawsuit.

Once the attorney general has convinced a judge or jury that a defendant has acted deceptively, the punishment can be severe. The law allows Ms. James to seek the forfeit of money obtained through fraud.

Of the roughly $355 million that Mr. Trump was ordered to pay, $168 million represents the sum that Mr. Trump saved on loans by inflating his worth, she argued. In other words, the extra interest the lenders missed.

The penalty was in the judge’s hands — there was no jury — and 63(12) gave him wide discretion.

The law also empowered Justice Engoron to set new restrictions on Mr. Trump and his family business, all of which Mr. Trump is expected to appeal.

The judge also ordered a monitor to assume more power over Mr. Trump’s company, who will appoint an independent executive who will report to the monitor from within the company.

Even before she filed her lawsuit against the Trumps in 2022, Ms. James used 63(12) as a cudgel to aid her investigation.

The law grants the attorney general’s office something akin to prosecutorial investigative power. In most civil cases, a person or entity planning to sue cannot collect documents or conduct interviews until after the lawsuit is filed. But 63(12) allows the attorney general to do a substantive investigation before deciding whether to sue, settle or abandon a case. In the case against Mr. Trump, the investigation proceeded for nearly three years before a lawsuit was filed.

The case is not Mr. Trump’s first brush with 63(12). Ms. James’s predecessors used it in actions against Trump University, his for-profit education venture, which paid millions of dollars to resolve the case.

The law became so important to Ms. James’s civil fraud case that it caught the attention of Mr. Trump, who lamented the sweeping authority it afforded the attorney general and falsely claimed that her office rarely used it.

He wrote on social media last year that 63(12) was “VERY UNFAIR.”

William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting.

Ben Protess is an investigative reporter at The Times, writing about public corruption. He has been covering the various criminal investigations into former President Trump and his allies. More about Ben Protess

Jonah E. Bromwich covers criminal justice in New York, with a focus on the Manhattan district attorney's office, state criminal courts in Manhattan and New York City's jails. More about Jonah E. Bromwich

50 Books to Read Before You Die

This is one of the 200 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

Cover of 'The Lord of the Rings' by J. R. R. Tolkien

This epic high-fantasy novel centers around a modest hobbit who is entrusted with the task of destroying a powerful ring that could enable the dark lord to conquer the world. Accompanied by a diverse group of companions, the hobbit embarks on a perilous journey across Middle-earth, battling evil forces and facing numerous challenges. The narrative, rich in mythology and complex themes of good versus evil, friendship, and heroism, has had a profound influence on the fantasy genre.

Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell

Cover of 'Nineteen Eighty Four' by George Orwell

Set in a dystopian future, the novel presents a society under the total control of a totalitarian regime, led by the omnipresent Big Brother. The protagonist, a low-ranking member of 'the Party', begins to question the regime and falls in love with a woman, an act of rebellion in a world where independent thought, dissent, and love are prohibited. The novel explores themes of surveillance, censorship, and the manipulation of truth.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Cover of 'Pride and Prejudice' by Jane Austen

Set in early 19th-century England, this classic novel revolves around the lives of the Bennet family, particularly the five unmarried daughters. The narrative explores themes of manners, upbringing, morality, education, and marriage within the society of the landed gentry. It follows the romantic entanglements of Elizabeth Bennet, the second eldest daughter, who is intelligent, lively, and quick-witted, and her tumultuous relationship with the proud, wealthy, and seemingly aloof Mr. Darcy. Their story unfolds as they navigate societal expectations, personal misunderstandings, and their own pride and prejudice.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Cover of 'The Grapes of Wrath' by John Steinbeck

The book follows the Joad family, Oklahoma farmers displaced from their land during the Great Depression. The family, alongside thousands of other "Okies," travel to California in search of work and a better life. Throughout their journey, they face numerous hardships and injustices, yet maintain their humanity through unity and shared sacrifice. The narrative explores themes of man's inhumanity to man, the dignity of wrath, and the power of family and friendship, offering a stark and moving portrayal of the harsh realities of American migrant laborers during the 1930s.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Cover of 'To Kill a Mockingbird' by Harper Lee

Set in the racially charged South during the Depression, the novel follows a young girl and her older brother as they navigate their small town's societal norms and prejudices. Their father, a lawyer, is appointed to defend a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman, forcing the children to confront the harsh realities of racism and injustice. The story explores themes of morality, innocence, and the loss of innocence through the eyes of the young protagonists.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Cover of 'Jane Eyre' by Charlotte Bronte

The novel follows the life of Jane Eyre, an orphan who is mistreated by her relatives and sent to a charity school. As she grows up, Jane becomes a governess at Thornfield Hall, where she falls in love with the brooding and mysterious Mr. Rochester. However, she soon learns of a dark secret in his past that threatens their future together. The story is a profound exploration of a woman's self-discovery and her struggle for independence and love in a rigid Victorian society.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Cover of 'Wuthering Heights' by Emily Brontë

This classic novel is a tale of love, revenge and social class set in the Yorkshire moors. It revolves around the intense, complex relationship between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, an orphan adopted by Catherine's father. Despite their deep affection for each other, Catherine marries Edgar Linton, a wealthy neighbor, leading Heathcliff to seek revenge on the two families. The story unfolds over two generations, reflecting the consequences of their choices and the destructive power of obsessive love.

A Passage to India by E. M. Forster

Cover of 'A Passage to India' by E. M. Forster

The novel takes place in British-ruled India, where the cultural divide between the British and the Indians is explored. The story focuses on the experiences of an Indian Muslim, Dr. Aziz, and his interactions with an English woman, Miss Quested, and her elderly friend, Mrs. Moore. After an expedition to the Marabar Caves, Miss Quested accuses Dr. Aziz of assault, leading to a trial that deepens the racial tensions and prejudices between the colonizers and the colonized. The novel is a critique of British imperialism and a study of the cultural and racial misunderstandings and ill-will between the British and the Indian people.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Cover of 'Lord of the Flies' by William Golding

A group of British boys are stranded on an uninhabited island after their plane crashes during wartime. Initially, they attempt to establish order, creating rules and electing a leader. However, as time passes, their civility erodes, and they descend into savagery and chaos. The struggle for power intensifies, leading to violence and death. The novel explores themes of innocence, the inherent evil in mankind, and the thin veneer of civilization.

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Cover of 'Hamlet' by William Shakespeare

This classic play revolves around the young Prince of Denmark who is thrown into a state of emotional turmoil after his father's sudden death and his mother's quick remarriage to his uncle. The prince is visited by the ghost of his father who reveals that he was murdered by the uncle, prompting the prince to seek revenge. The narrative explores themes of madness, revenge, and moral corruption as the prince navigates the complex political and emotional landscape of the Danish court.

A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul

Cover of 'A Bend in the River' by V. S. Naipaul

"A Bend in the River" is a novel that follows an Indian man, Salim, who moves from the East Coast of Africa to the heart of the continent to open a store in a small, remote town at a bend in the river. The book explores the changes that occur in the town as it evolves from a sleepy outpost to a bustling city. It also delves into Salim's personal struggles and the challenges he faces in adapting to a rapidly changing society, all set against the backdrop of post-colonial Africa.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Cover of 'The Great Gatsby' by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Set in the summer of 1922, the novel follows the life of a young and mysterious millionaire, his extravagant lifestyle in Long Island, and his obsessive love for a beautiful former debutante. As the story unfolds, the millionaire's dark secrets and the corrupt reality of the American dream during the Jazz Age are revealed. The narrative is a critique of the hedonistic excess and moral decay of the era, ultimately leading to tragic consequences.

The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

Cover of 'The Catcher in the Rye' by J. D. Salinger

The novel follows the story of a teenager named Holden Caulfield, who has just been expelled from his prep school. The narrative unfolds over the course of three days, during which Holden experiences various forms of alienation and his mental state continues to unravel. He criticizes the adult world as "phony" and struggles with his own transition into adulthood. The book is a profound exploration of teenage rebellion, alienation, and the loss of innocence.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Cover of 'The Bell Jar' by Sylvia Plath

The novel follows the story of a young woman who wins a guest editorship at a magazine in New York City and, after a series of personal and professional disappointments, suffers a mental breakdown and returns to her family, where she continues to struggle with depression and suicidal thoughts. The protagonist's experiences in psychiatric institutions and her attempts to reclaim her life are depicted with brutal honesty, making it a poignant exploration of mental illness and the societal pressures faced by women in the mid-20th century.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Cover of 'Brave New World' by Aldous Huxley

Set in a dystopian future, the novel explores a society where human beings are genetically bred and pharmaceutically conditioned to serve in a ruling order. The society is divided into five castes, each with its specific roles. The narrative follows a savage who rejects the norms of this new world order and struggles to navigate the clash between the values of his upbringing and the reality of this technologically advanced, emotionless society. His resistance prompts a deep examination of the nature of freedom, individuality, and happiness.

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

Cover of 'The Diary of a Young Girl' by Anne Frank

This book is a real-life account of a young Jewish girl hiding from the Nazis during World War II, written in diary format. The girl and her family are forced to live in a secret annex in Amsterdam for two years, during which she writes about her experiences, fears, dreams, and the onset of adolescence. The diary provides a poignant and deeply personal insight into the horrors of the Holocaust, making it a powerful testament to the human spirit.

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Cover of 'Don Quixote' by Miguel de Cervantes

This classic novel follows the adventures of a man who, driven mad by reading too many chivalric romances, decides to become a knight-errant and roam the world righting wrongs under the name Don Quixote. Accompanied by his loyal squire, Sancho Panza, he battles windmills he believes to be giants and champions the virtuous lady Dulcinea, who is in reality a simple peasant girl. The book is a richly layered critique of the popular literature of Cervantes' time and a profound exploration of reality and illusion, madness and sanity.

The Bible by Christian Church

Cover of 'The Bible' by Christian Church

This religious text is a compilation of 66 books divided into the Old and New Testaments, forming the central narrative for Christianity. It encompasses a variety of genres, including historical accounts, poetry, prophecy, and teaching, telling the story of God's relationship with humanity, from creation to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the early Christian church. It is considered by believers to be divinely inspired and serves as a guide for faith and practice.

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

Cover of 'The Canterbury Tales' by Geoffrey Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales is a collection of 24 stories that follows a group of pilgrims traveling from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket. Told in Middle English, the tales are narrated by a diverse group of pilgrims, including a knight, a miller, a reeve, and a pardoner, who share their stories to pass the time during their journey. The tales, which range from chivalrous romances to bawdy fabliaux, provide a colorful, satirical, and critical portrayal of 14th century English society.

Ulysses by James Joyce

Cover of 'Ulysses' by James Joyce

Set in Dublin, the novel follows a day in the life of Leopold Bloom, an advertising salesman, as he navigates the city. The narrative, heavily influenced by Homer's Odyssey, explores themes of identity, heroism, and the complexities of everyday life. It is renowned for its stream-of-consciousness style and complex structure, making it a challenging but rewarding read.

The Quiet American by Graham Greene

Cover of 'The Quiet American' by Graham Greene

Set during the French colonial war in Vietnam, this novel follows a British journalist and a young American idealist who become friends and find themselves in a love triangle with a Vietnamese woman. As the war escalates, the journalist becomes disillusioned with the American's naïve political views and the destructive impact of foreign intervention. The story is a critique of American involvement in Vietnam, exploring themes of love, friendship, and moral ambiguity.

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

Cover of 'Birdsong' by Sebastian Faulks

"Birdsong" is a historical novel that explores the horrors of World War I through the eyes of Stephen Wraysford, a young Englishman. The narrative alternates between Stephen's passionate love affair with a married woman in pre-war France and his experiences in the trenches of the Western Front. The novel also includes a subplot set in the 1970s, where Stephen's granddaughter tries to unravel the mystery of her grandfather's past. The book is a poignant exploration of love, war, and the endurance of the human spirit.

Money by Martin Amis

Cover of 'Money' by Martin Amis

"Money" is a darkly humorous novel that follows the life of John Self, a hedonistic, self-destructive director of commercials, as he navigates the excesses and depravities of 1980s New York and London. His life is filled with overindulgence in food, alcohol, drugs, and women, leading to a downward spiral of self-destruction. The novel is a satire on the excesses of capitalism and the obsession with wealth and materialism, and it also explores themes of identity, self-loathing, and the destructive power of addiction.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K Rowling

Cover of 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' by J. K Rowling

In the final installment of this popular series, the protagonist and his friends decide to leave their school to complete the mission left to them by their late headmaster - to destroy the remaining pieces of the antagonist's soul, hidden in various objects. As they journey through the wizarding world, they uncover the truth about the antagonist's past and the legend of the Deathly Hallows. Amidst the escalating war, they are captured and narrowly escape, leading to the ultimate battle at their school where many lives are lost. The protagonist learns he must sacrifice himself to truly defeat the antagonist, but is given a second chance at life and finally triumphs, ending the war. The story concludes with a glimpse into the peaceful future they have all earned.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K Rowling

Cover of 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix' by J. K Rowling

In the fifth installment of this iconic series, the young wizard Harry Potter returns for his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, only to discover that much of the wizarding world, including the Ministry of Magic, is in denial about the teenager's recent encounter with the evil Lord Voldemort. Harry is also beset by disturbing dreams while the sinister prison guards of Azkaban have been stationed at Hogwarts to protect the school, and Harry's budding abilities as a wizard are put to the test. Meanwhile, a secret society, the Order of the Phoenix, is working to fight Voldemort and his followers, and Harry's role in the coming conflict is becoming ever more significant.

Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets by J. K Rowling

Cover of 'Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets' by J. K Rowling

In this second installment of a magical series, a young wizard returns to his school of witchcraft and wizardry for his second year, only to find that a mysterious entity is petrifying his classmates. With the help of his friends, he uncovers the dark history of the school, including a secret chamber hidden within the castle. Inside this chamber lurks a creature controlled by a memory from the past, and the young wizard must face it to save his school.

Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban by J. K Rowling

Cover of 'Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban' by J. K Rowling

In this third installment of the popular fantasy series, the protagonist enters his third year at a magical school, only to find out that a notorious prisoner has escaped from a supposedly inescapable prison and is believed to be after him. As the school year progresses, he learns more about his parents' history, uncovers secrets about his professor, and discovers a magical map. He also learns to summon a powerful defensive spell, confronts the escaped prisoner, and uncovers the truth about his parents' betrayal and death. The book ends with him saving an innocent life and learning a valuable lesson about the complexity of human nature and the importance of true friendship.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K Rowling

Cover of 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire' by J. K Rowling

In this fourth installment of a popular fantasy series, a young wizard finds himself unexpectedly entered into a dangerous tournament between rival schools of magic. He must compete in a series of challenging tasks, including a deadly dragon chase and a terrifying underwater rescue mission. Meanwhile, he's dealing with regular teen issues like crushes, jealousy, and school dances. But as he unravels the mystery behind his selection for the tournament, he uncovers a dark plot that puts his life in danger and hints at the return of a powerful dark wizard.

Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone by J. K Rowling

Cover of 'Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone' by J. K Rowling

The story follows a young boy, Harry Potter, who learns on his 11th birthday that he is the orphaned son of two powerful wizards and possesses unique magical powers of his own. He is summoned from his life as an unwanted child to become a student at Hogwarts, an English boarding school for wizards. There, he meets several friends who become his closest allies and help him discover the truth about his parents' mysterious deaths, the dark wizard who wants to kill him, and the magical stone that holds immense power.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K Rowling

Cover of 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' by J. K Rowling

In the sixth installment of the series, the protagonist returns for his sixth year at a magical school, where he excels in potions class with the help of an old textbook once belonging to the mysterious "Half-Blood Prince". As he delves deeper into his enemy's past through private lessons with the headmaster, he learns more about the Dark wizard's history and his own destiny. Amidst this, the school is no longer the safe haven it once was, and danger lurks within the castle walls. The year ends with a devastating loss, setting the stage for the final showdown.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Cover of 'Moby Dick' by Herman Melville

The novel is a detailed narrative of a vengeful sea captain's obsessive quest to hunt down a giant white sperm whale that bit off his leg. The captain's relentless pursuit, despite the warnings and concerns of his crew, leads them on a dangerous journey across the seas. The story is a complex exploration of good and evil, obsession, and the nature of reality, filled with rich descriptions of whaling and the sea.

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Cover of 'The Wind in the Willows' by Kenneth Grahame

"The Wind in the Willows" is a charming tale about the adventures of four anthropomorphic animal friends - Mole, Rat, Badger, and the rebellious and extravagant Toad. The story is set in the idyllic English countryside and explores themes of friendship, exploration, and respect for nature. The narrative is marked by Toad's reckless behavior, his obsession with motor cars, and his eventual redemption. The other characters, with their contrasting personalities, bring balance and depth to the story.

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

Cover of 'His Dark Materials' by Philip Pullman

"His Dark Materials" is a fantasy trilogy that follows the journey of a young girl named Lyra Belacqua and her daemon, Pantalaimon, across parallel universes. Throughout their adventures, they encounter a variety of mythical creatures, confront religious and political systems, and grapple with complex themes such as free will, original sin, and the nature of consciousness. The series also delves into the mysteries of Dust, a strange particle integral to the multiverse's function.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Cover of 'Anna Karenina' by Leo Tolstoy

Set in 19th-century Russia, this novel revolves around the life of Anna Karenina, a high-society woman who, dissatisfied with her loveless marriage, embarks on a passionate affair with a charming officer named Count Vronsky. This scandalous affair leads to her social downfall, while parallel to this, the novel also explores the rural life and struggles of Levin, a landowner who seeks the meaning of life and true happiness. The book explores themes such as love, marriage, fidelity, societal norms, and the human quest for happiness.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Cover of 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' by Lewis Carroll

This novel follows the story of a young girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantastical world full of peculiar creatures and bizarre experiences. As she navigates through this strange land, she encounters a series of nonsensical events, including a tea party with a Mad Hatter, a pool of tears, and a trial over stolen tarts. The book is renowned for its playful use of language, logic, and its exploration of the boundaries of reality.

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Cover of 'Rebecca' by Daphne du Maurier

A young woman marries a wealthy widower and moves into his large English country house. She quickly realizes that the memory of her husband's first wife, Rebecca, haunts every corner of the estate. The housekeeper's obsessive devotion to Rebecca and the mysterious circumstances of her death continue to overshadow the second wife's attempts to make a happy life with her husband. As secrets about Rebecca's life and death are revealed, the new wife must grapple with her own identity and place within the household.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

Cover of 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time' by Mark Haddon

This novel follows a 15-year-old boy with autism as he tries to solve the mystery of who killed his neighbor's dog. Along the way, he uncovers other secrets about his family and must navigate the world using his unique perspective and abilities. The book offers an insightful look into the mind of a character with autism, highlighting his struggles and triumphs in a compelling and empathetic way.

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Cover of 'On the Road' by Jack Kerouac

This novel follows the story of a young man and his friend as they embark on a series of cross-country road trips across America during the late 1940s and early 1950s. The protagonist, driven by a desire for freedom and a quest for identity, encounters a series of eccentric characters and experiences the highs and lows of the Beat Generation. The narrative is a testament to the restlessness of youth and the allure of adventure, underscored by themes of jazz, poetry, and drug use.

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Cover of 'Heart of Darkness' by Joseph Conrad

This classic novel follows the journey of a seaman who travels up the Congo River into the African interior to meet a mysterious ivory trader. Throughout his journey, he encounters the harsh realities of imperialism, the brutal treatment of native Africans, and the depths of human cruelty and madness. The protagonist's journey into the 'heart of darkness' serves as both a physical exploration of the African continent and a metaphorical exploration into the depths of human nature.

The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope

Cover of 'The Way We Live Now' by Anthony Trollope

The book is a satirical analysis of the moral corruption in London during the 1870s. It centers around Augustus Melmotte, a fraudulent financier, who moves his family to London in an attempt to climb the social ladder. His daughter, Marie, falls in love with Sir Felix Carbury, a penniless playboy, while his wife is desperate to be accepted into London society. The book explores themes of wealth, power, love, and greed, and is a biting critique of the era's obsession with status and money.

The Stranger by Albert Camus

Cover of 'The Stranger' by Albert Camus

The narrative follows a man who, after the death of his mother, falls into a routine of indifference and emotional detachment, leading him to commit an act of violence on a sun-drenched beach. His subsequent trial becomes less about the act itself and more about his inability to conform to societal norms and expectations, ultimately exploring themes of existentialism, absurdism, and the human condition.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Cover of 'The Color Purple' by Alice Walker

Set in the early 20th century, the novel is an epistolary tale of a young African-American woman named Celie, living in the South. She faces constant abuse and hardship, first from her father and then from her husband. The story unfolds through her letters written to God and her sister Nettie, revealing her emotional journey from oppression to self-discovery and independence, aided by her relationships with strong women around her. The narrative explores themes of racism, sexism, domestic violence, and the power of sisterhood and love.

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Cover of 'Life of Pi' by Yann Martel

A young Indian boy named Pi Patel survives a shipwreck and finds himself adrift in the Pacific Ocean on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. Over the course of 227 days, Pi uses his knowledge of animal behavior and survival skills to coexist with the tiger, ultimately leading to an unusual and deeply spiritual journey. The story explores themes of faith, survival, and the interpretation of reality.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Cover of 'Frankenstein' by Mary Shelley

This classic novel tells the story of a young scientist who creates a grotesque but sentient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. The scientist, horrified by his creation, abandons it, leading the creature to seek revenge. The novel explores themes of ambition, responsibility, guilt, and the potential consequences of playing God.

War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells

Cover of 'War of the Worlds' by H. G. Wells

This classic science fiction novel tells the story of a Martian invasion of Earth, as experienced by an unnamed protagonist and his brother. The Martians, who are technologically far superior to humans, cause widespread devastation with their heat-ray weapons and towering tripods. Despite humanity's best efforts to resist, they seem unstoppable. The novel is a commentary on British imperialism and explores themes of human survival and evolution.

Stories of Ernest Hemingway by Ernest Hemingway

Cover of 'Stories of Ernest Hemingway' by Ernest Hemingway

This book is a collection of short stories penned by a renowned 20th-century American author, known for his minimalist and direct style of writing. The stories span a range of themes, including love, war, wilderness, and loss, often drawing from the author's own experiences as a journalist and war correspondent. Each story offers a glimpse into the complexities of human nature and the harsh realities of life, showcasing the author's ability to capture profound emotions and experiences in simple, yet powerful prose.

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

Cover of 'Gulliver's Travels' by Jonathan Swift

This classic satire follows the travels of a surgeon and sea captain who embarks on a series of extraordinary voyages. The protagonist first finds himself shipwrecked on an island inhabited by tiny people, later discovers a land of giants, then encounters a society of intelligent horses, and finally lands on a floating island of scientists. Through these bizarre adventures, the novel explores themes of human nature, morality, and society, offering a scathing critique of European culture and the human condition.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Cover of 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens

This classic tale follows a miserly old man named Ebenezer Scrooge who despises Christmas and all forms of happiness. On Christmas Eve, he is visited by the ghost of his former business partner and three spirits representing Christmases Past, Present, and Yet to Come. These apparitions take him on a journey that forces him to confront his selfish ways, leading him to a transformation where he becomes a kinder and more generous person, embodying the true spirit of Christmas.

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Cover of 'Robinson Crusoe' by Daniel Defoe

The book is a classic adventure novel about a man who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers before being rescued. The story is noted for its realistic portrayal of the protagonist's physical and psychological development and for its detailed depiction of his attempts to create a life for himself in the wilderness. The novel has been interpreted as an allegory for the development of civilization, as well as a critique of European colonialism.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

Cover of 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' by Ken Kesey

Set in a psychiatric hospital in Oregon, the novel is narrated by a half-Native American patient known as Chief Bromden, who pretends to be deaf and mute. The story follows the arrival of a new patient, a boisterous, rebellious man who challenges the oppressive and dehumanizing system of the hospital, particularly the tyrannical Nurse Ratched. The book explores themes of individuality, rebellion, and the misuse of power, ultimately leading to a tragic conclusion.

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Cover of 'Catch-22' by Joseph Heller

The book is a satirical critique of military bureaucracy and the illogical nature of war, set during World War II. The story follows a U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bombardier stationed in Italy, who is trying to maintain his sanity while fulfilling his service requirements so that he can go home. The novel explores the absurdity of war and military life through the experiences of the protagonist, who discovers that a bureaucratic rule, the "Catch-22", makes it impossible for him to escape his dangerous situation. The more he tries to avoid his military assignments, the deeper he gets sucked into the irrational world of military rule.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Cover of 'The Count of Monte Cristo' by Alexandre Dumas

A young sailor, unjustly accused of treason, is imprisoned without trial in a grim fortress. After a daring escape, he uncovers a hidden treasure and transforms himself into the mysterious and wealthy Count of Monte Cristo. He then sets out to exact revenge on those who wronged him, using his newfound power and influence. Throughout his journey, he grapples with questions about justice, vengeance, and whether ultimate power can ultimately corrupt.

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

Cover of 'Memoirs of a Geisha' by Arthur Golden

This novel is a historical fiction that provides a rich exploration of life in Japan before World War II, through the eyes of a young girl sold into the geisha lifestyle. The protagonist is trained in the arts of entertaining wealthy and powerful men, navigating a world of jealousy, love, and social politics. Her journey is one of resilience and survival as she strives to find personal happiness in a society that views her as a commodity.

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

Cover of 'The Divine Comedy' by Dante Alighieri

In this epic poem, the protagonist embarks on an extraordinary journey through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio), and Paradise (Paradiso). Guided by the ancient Roman poet Virgil and his beloved Beatrice, he encounters various historical and mythological figures in each realm, witnessing the eternal consequences of earthly sins and virtues. The journey serves as an allegory for the soul's progression towards God, offering profound insights into the nature of good and evil, free will, and divine justice.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Cover of 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' by Oscar Wilde

The novel follows the life of a handsome young man who, after having his portrait painted, is upset to realize that the painting will remain beautiful while he ages. After expressing a wish that the painting would age instead of him, he is shocked to find that his wish comes true. As he indulges in a life of hedonism and immoral acts, his portrait becomes increasingly grotesque, reflecting the damage his actions have on his soul. The story serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of vanity, selfishness, and the pursuit of pleasure without regard for consequences.

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